Not everybody can come to Ric's
by Gage93
Summary: Inspired by "Rashomama," a throwback to old school detective fiction.  When a young woman is found dead in a seedy club shrouded in Old Vegas mystery, Greg Sanders and his fellow CSIs are hot on the case. Casefile. Greg's POV.
1. Chapter 1

_**Not everybody can come to Ric's**_

**A/N: **Alright, so this is my first and likely only Greg fanfic, though I do like and respect the character. I loved the segment in the episode "Rashomama" where Greg narrates his part of the investigation and this idea to do that with a story for Greg has been lingering in my mind for a very long time. I haven't read any Greg fanfiction yet either (sorry Greg fans), so I'm not sure if it has been done before. I hope this does you Greg fans justice. I'm hoping you find it cheesy and entertaining.

Just a note, the title comes from the title of an unpublished play, _Everybody Comes to Rick's, _which was the basis for the film, _Casablanca, _though the inspiration for the story comes from that wonderful segment in the "Rashomama" episode, as well as Dashiell Hammett and the Mystery TV ads for CSI appearing up here in Canada.

**Spoilers: **The story is set between season 6 and 7, so anything through season 6 is fair game. Will follow canon.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own anything associated with CSI or it's characters. This is merely an exercise in fun, with no attempt at any gain and I am just borrowing these wonderful CBS characters. Everything else is purely the product of my imagination.

_**Not everybody can come to Ric's**_

**Chapter 1**

The air was heavy. It felt thick with moisture though there was no rain. The day had been dry, but a curious humidity had settled upon the city that night and had overtaken it in the wee small hours of the morning. I stepped off the curb and rounded a corner, leaving behind the garish neon lights of Fremont Street, exchanging it for the darkness of the alley I hadn't been able to pull my vehicle into. The lights of the street behind me cut through the fog, giving the alley a soft glow. I reached down into my pocket and checked my instructions again. I was heading the right direction, though why I had to cut through this alley was beyond me. The scene was indoors, or at least that is what my boss had told me over the phone.

Pocketing my phone, the text message with directions still illuminated, I continued to move slowly forward, clutching my kit in one hand. Seeing yellow tape in the distance, my pace quickened. I was in the right place. I stepped under the tape and meandered through the vehicles taking up residence in the alley. The vehicles were lab issued. My steps progressed into a short jog and then slowed again as I caught sight of two familiar men talking to an unfamiliar suit in the alley.

As I neared the men, my eyebrow lifted. Jim Brass, the brass, was taking notes. It caught me by surprise that Brass was the dick assigned to this case. I hadn't expected to see him back so soon after taking a couple of near fatal slugs on a job only a couple months before. That was one tough cat. He caught my eye and gave me a quick nod to a door behind him before turning his attention back to the suit.

The other man with him was Grissom, my boss, our leader, the man who pulled me from a case of bent cars and called me out to this darkened alley at three in the morning. He took no notice of me but kept his eyes steeled to the man in front of him.

Passing by them, I gave the nameless man the up and down. His height ran close to that of mine and my boss's and he had an athletic build. I figured him to run at about 5'11 and weigh close to 200. He had steely gray eyes that glinted like glass. His hair was dark brown, cut short, and his hairline had begun to recede. He wore pinstripes, well tailored, a silk tie, black leather dress shoes and a gold Versace watch, genuine. This cat had dough, so what was he doing in an alley talking to Grissom and a homicide dick?

My eyes caught a small sign over the door, worn through the years. _Ric's_. That could explain few things. _Ric's _was a name shrouded in mystery. According to Vegas legend, _Ric's _was a private establishment, named for a Kansas City crime boss, Ricardo Ajala. Word was it was a place where certain suits could go to meet people they probably should not be seen with. The name had popped up time and time again over the years, mostly with some seedy mystery attached to it. Several things are said to have happened at the club over the years, but one would have to do some digging to find anything on record. Some thought it was merely legend, or the paranoid mind's invention of former FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover. The birds involved with it remained tight-lipped. Nobody had ever confirmed, publically, that the establishment actually existed, but Lois O'Neill had mentioned it a couple of times in her memoirs, and I knew that anything Lois O'Neill had put down in those memoirs was true. She had held nothing back and had nothing to gain as she had chosen to pull the Dutch act.

I pushed open the door, watching as dust lifted off the door and floated through the air. Walking only a few steps through a narrow hall, I came to another door, this one heavier. Taking a glance around, I could make out a couple of shoe impressions in the dust near the door, likely where the muscle stood to make sure no unwelcome patrons tried to enter. The shoe impressions looked undisturbed, as though no one had taken the time to lift them yet. Bending down, I placed my kit on the floor, opened it slowly and lifted the impressions, sealing the tape as I moved. I took a look at the impression. It was sizable, at least a size 14, and I figured it must have come from a large man. I placed it in my kit.

Opening the heavy door, I stepped out of the dusty hall into a room of red velvet and velour, and dark wood. The inside was all swank, far closer to what legend implied than the entrance in had been. There was a small stage in front, neat circular tables interspersed around the floor, with sets of two to six lounge chairs around each table. Taking up the far side was an elegant looking bar made of cherry wood and brass. The air in the room was smoky; a stench of stale cigarettes wafting throughout, but the place was clean.

I glanced around the room, eyeballing the people within it. There was a short man by the bar, dark hair and dark eyes, an apron around his waist. Next to him was a large man, very tall, at least 6'6 with a thick neck; probably the muscle whose shoe impressions I lifted from beside the heavy door. He had the look of a Bruno. They were flanked by a couple of uniforms. I strolled past them and into another room.

Stepping into a gaming room, I let my eyes fall on my colleague, Catherine Willows, a strawberry blond with a lot of sass. Sharp and beautiful, she was one hell of a broad. As Grissom's second in command, she was his right hand. Were I on the other side, she was the kind of Jane I would both desire and fear at the same time. She knew how to use everything God gave her. She could wound a man with wit, but also with her body, a lethal combination. She also knew her way around, had all the right connections as well as all the wrong ones. If anyone I knew had been in this club before, it would have been her.

Catherine had an intent look on her face as she bent over, camera in hand. The flash of her camera went off. She lowered the camera and turned to glance at me. "Hey, Greg." She stood up, her bent knees straightening.

I nodded in reply and moved towards her. "So this is what it looks like inside the infamous _Ric's_?"

"I guess so."

"Never been here before?"

Catherine laughed, an amused sound. "No."

I glanced around the room, taking in the single pristine roulette wheel and the lone poker table, lined with green velvet. Not much of a casino, but when someone has a very exclusive guest list I supposed it would be enough. "Really? With Sam Braun as your father?"

She shook her head. I knew she hated the mention of any connection between her father and her, but I couldn't help but press. Catherine was a Vegas heiress, and Sam, one of its kings.

"Know anyone who has?"

She looked at me and smirked. "You think Sam entertained here? This isn't his joint. He has a couple of his own casinos to entertain at."

"None that could include a very private clientele."

Catherine shook her head again and shot off another photo of the room. "If you want to feed your curiosity and you're digging for someone who might know anything about this place, why don't you try asking Warrick?"

"Warrick?"

"Sure, he used to be a runner. It wouldn't surprise me if he ran bets out of here for people who couldn't afford to be seen gambling."

"Really?" I scratched my chin and took in this new bit of information. I knew Warrick had been a gambler, and as a Vegas local, he was sure to have heard all the lore surrounding this place, but if I were to have bet on who knew more, I still would have put my dime on Catherine. I decided to let it go for the moment. "Where do you want me?"

"Doesn't look like there has been much activity in here tonight. Sara's in the back room with the body. Why don't you go help her out in there? Grissom was in there earlier, but he left to talk to the manager, so she may want a hand."

I nodded and moved to towards what Catherine had dubbed the back room. I stepped inside and there, crouched before me, was the woman of many of my dreams, Sara Sidle. Sara was the kind of girl you wouldn't be afraid to take home to your mother, the kind of girl that could make you believe in the happily ever after. Of all the dames I'd ever met, Sara had it all. She was brown haired beauty, loyal, kind and caring. She had a smile that could turn a man goofy, gams that stretched on forever, a look of concentration that could steal a man's breath, and she was so frighteningly intelligent it could render a man mute. She was as sharp and as witty as Catherine and nearly as beautiful, though in a less conventional way. Once I'd gone a little daffy over her, but I'd outgrown that – mostly. She was still a dish I'd like to try a hand at, should she show any interest.

From her crouched position, Sara glanced up at me. I kneeled down next to her, taking in the young woman's body, sprawled upon a vintage chaise lounge. "What have we got?"

"Camille Vanasse, lounge singer."

I nodded and studied the young woman before me. She had dark curls, a beautiful complexion of dark olive skin and emerald green eyes that now stared emptily up at the ceiling. She wore a cocktail dress that was red and came to just above her knee, the skirt draping over both her and the chaise lounge. A French cocktail singer. I pictured a smoky voice that fell somewhere in between Edith Piaf and Ella Fitzgerald. "Any idea what happened?"

Sara shook her head. "No. The waiter outside found her this way and dialed 911." She pointed to the victim's neck, careful not to touch the body. "She has some markings on the neck, so I'm thinking she may have been strangled."

"David isn't here yet?" I asked, wondering about the coroner.

Sara shook her head. "Grissom said he just called. He's on his way."

Just then, David Philips entered through the door, Grissom trailing behind him. They both bent over the body, David lifting the young victim's arm. "Rigor hasn't set in yet." His gloved hands lingered on her skin. "Body still feels warm." I watched as he began taking the victim's liver temperature. "97.4, she's been dead less than an hour."

Sara looked up at Grissom. "When was the 911 call made?"

"Twenty after two."

"The call must have been made just after she died."

Grissom and Sara stared at each other. I stared at both of them. Time of death wasn't something we could predict with precise accuracy, and there could have been external factors that caused our body to run a little warm, but there was something in Sara's words that struck at all of us. I couldn't help but feel that something suspicious was going on.

"There are markings on her neck. She could have died of asphyxiation."

We turned our attention back to David and watched as he brushed the hair away from her neck, his fingers grazing over the bruises.

"Sara noticed the same thing," I stated, adding my voice to all the others. I watched as David turned the body and then placed it gently back down. I began to snap photos as Sara and Grissom, now able to touch the body, began to process it. David had disappeared, but I knew he'd only gone to retrieve a gurney.

When David returned, we lifted the body onto the gurney and watched him push it out of the small room.

Grissom turned to us. "I'll go back with the body. You guys can finish processing the club."

I nodded. It was time to take a better look at this joint and all of the characters in it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

I was the kid on the scene. I had to remind myself of that as Catherine and Sara decided to process the room the body had been in, sending me to process the gaming room that Catherine had been photographing. I decided to make the most of it, opening up a jar of print powder and starting on the poker table. I wondered whose prints would turn up at the table - old mob men, men who once ran the city, the whales who might have tried a hand or two against Vegas's oldest and most irreputable gamblers. Most of those prints would be gone, but the club was still open and who knew who still came here to play.

When I left the room that had only moments earlier held the dead body of a young lounge singer, Sara had handed me a pink print powder, a serious powder prepared by Grissom for some serious lifting. My fingers brushing print powder over each surface, I watched as the pink dust floated off the surface, glowing bright in the dimly lit room. I blew on the dust, watching the rosey particles drift through the air. My eyes moved back to the darkened surface of the table. Each print smoldered in pink.

I became immersed in my task, so immersed I nearly missed the entrance of a young woman into the room. She was the kind of dame whose entrance you couldn't miss for long. The air sizzled and I felt the hairs lift on the back of my neck. I glanced up at the smouldering beauty whose presence could charge a whole room. My eyes followed her as she moved into the corner of the room and took a seat at another chaise lounge. She glanced at me with amusement as I turned fully towards her.

My eyes moved over her, giving her the up and down as I studied this curious mystery. I was not sure where she had come from, or who had let her into this room, but of all the questions I wanted to throw at her; those two were not high up on the list. Late twenties, fair skin, perfect curves, perfect pink lips, a icy blue-grey eyed, platinum blonde with wavy, glossy hair that fell below her shoulders, she was a doll. The glint in her eye told me she was the dangerous kind.

She took a long puff of her cigarette; she was smoking slims. When she exhaled, her perfect, full mouth formed an equally perfect "O" and the smoke came out in rings. She watched me watching her and crossed one leg over the other. My eyes moved over her gams, long, lean, perfect. They were covered only by black nylons as the rest of her body bore a show girl's outfit, all glitz and glamour, silver and more pink, shimmering in the glow of the room.

I moved towards her slowly. "I didn't know any showgirls entertained here."

"Kid, there haven't been any showgirls in here for years."

"And yet here you are."

She let out a short laugh and even that was a perfect sound. Her eyes sparkled dangerously. "So, what are you, another flatfoot?"

"Greg Sanders. I'm a crime scene investigator." I paused and gave her the eyeball. "You already talk to a dick?"

She shook her head, her hair brushing over her shoulder. "That flatfoot outside is still giving Johnny the third."

I nodded. "Who's Johnny?"

"The bartender. Found the body."

I nodded again. "And the dick, he just let you come in here?"

She laughed. "There's a copper by the door."

"Watching your every move?"

The showgirl cocked her head to the side. She leaned forward, taking a drag of her cigarette and exhaling a thin line of smoke into my face. Her voice was husky. "Tell you what, if you can find where I may have hid a gun in this outfit, I'll let you do a full, thorough search."

She winked. I leaned back and let my eyes scan slowly over her figure.

"Afraid to touch?"

I shook my head and let my eyes wander over once more. She couldn't hide a gun on that figure.

"The dick said you'd want to process me, so go ahead, Mr. Greg Sanders, process."

I took out a swab and watched as she slowly opened her mouth. "What's your name?"

"Lauren Perske," she let out in a breathy whisper after I had swabbed her cheek.

"So Miss Perske…"

"You, Greg," she interrupted, "can call me Lauren."

"So Lauren, are you really a showgirl?"

"Sure. You can catch my act at the Tangiers."

"What is a showgirl doing in this joint when there have been no showgirls in here for years?"

"A favor for a friend."

She held out her hand and let me print her. I studied her hands as I did so.

"Sam Braun lend you out for many favors?"

Her lips turned up in a smirk. "What makes you think Sam lent me out?"

"What does he think of you moonlighting?"

Her eyes darkened, the blue in them hardening. This rose had her thorns. She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. "I told you, it was a favor for a friend."

I placed her swab and print sample in my kit. "So, _Ric's _was in need of a showgirl tonight?"

She didn't respond. She only smirked, the grey in her eyes glinting like glass, overtaking the blue. "Anything else?"

"Know anything about the dead girl?"

"Camille? Not a thing."

"You sure? The 911 call was made just after she died. You didn't see anything?" I pressed. She said nothing. I decided to try for something else. "This place is still closed-doors. It still employs a look-out. What's your friend been up to?"

Lauren Perske leaned back against the back of the chaise lounge. She took a long puff of her cigarette. The smirk remained on her face. One perfect leg crossed over the other, again showing off the perfect form of her gams. I could not help but follow those games right up, and that may have amused her. I could feel her eyes studying me. Her lips were pursed in a small smile. She looked relaxed, dangerous. "What kind of bird do you think I am?"

I stood above her, towering over her. "I don't know. What kind of bird are you?"

"I'm no canary."

"I bet you have a beautiful voice."

Her smirk grew wider. She let out a small chuckle.

"So, not a canary? What then?"

Her smirk fell away. She looked at me with that darkened glint. "I'm no pigeon either."

I nodded. I had an idea about the kind of bird she was and it was something far more predatory than either ot those two birds. "Didn't figure you for one, but unless you decide you can be on the level with us, you're going to wind up spending some time in the cooler."

"Threatening me with Hoosegow, Mr. Sanders?"

"Withholding evidence is a crime, Miss Perske. If you know something…"

She smirked. "As it happens, I don't, not about this."

"About something else, then?"

Her smirk grew. She stood up and moved into my space. "Every twenty years or so, some girl finds herself in a Chicago overcoat._1_ A girl's got to be careful around here."

"Camille Vanasse is the third. A little early for a pattern?"

Her fingers found my shoulder. She leaned forward and whispered into my ear, "Baby, Camille Vanasse sets the pattern."

I turned into her, feeling her fingers slip from my shoulders and fall across my chest. "And yet you feel safe doing a favor for a friend around here."

She stepped back. "What can I say? I'm a sucker for a little excitement." She paused and took a long drag of her cigarette, and then turned. "Bye, bye, Greg."

She left me with a small wave and sauntered away, giving her hips a little sway as she moved. Peeking back over her shoulder she gave me an amused look as she glanced at me watching her walk away. She could play coy, but I knew she'd only glanced back to make sure my eyes were following her exit. She winked as she strolled out the door.

"See something you like, Greggo?"

I jumped slightly and turned to the breathy voice in my ear. "Sara, you startled me."

She smirked. "I bet."

I looked back to where Lauren Perske exited and shook my head, turning back towards her. "No, nice enough to look at, but not my type," I lied. Lauren Perske was definitely the type I wouldn't mind going a few rounds with, but as a steady moll? I'd caught a glimpse of the danger lurking beneath the perfect exterior. A little danger could be exciting, but I'd have to be pretty dizzy with that dame to go there. No way I'd go any further than those first few rounds.

Sara 's smirk grew. Her eyes glinted. "Didn't know you had a type."

I gave her a smile. I could feel my own eyes glinting as I pulled a move right out of Grissom's book. I winked. _"Only you darling- lanky brunettes with wicked jaws."2_

Sara cocked her head. There was a glint in her eye. She leaned forward, her upper body brushing mine, causing my whole frame to still. I felt my breath catch as she leaned into my space and bent her head to mine, whispering in my ear. "Why, Mr. Charles…"

She turned and walked out of the room.

I remained standing in place, my heart slowing to it's normal, steady beat, my breaths resuming their movement in and out. It took a moment for me to catch my bearings. I hurried to catch up with her. "You've read _The Thin Man_?" It shouldn't have surprised me that she would recognize that quote. I was sure Sara had read every piece of literature there was to read. It was likely she was as well read or almost as well read as Grissom.

Sara grinned. "Read it and watched the movie."

Now that did surprise me. I didn't figure Sara for a fan of old films. "Really?"

"Sure, and the sequels. Can we get back to work?"

I shook my head. There was no way I was going to let her get away with stopping there. "No, not until you tell me how you found yourself to be watching a classic black and white film."

She sighed. "Alright, if you must know, I watched it with a boyfriend. It was one of his favorite movies." She paused and smiled slightly. "You know, I think he had a bit of a crush on Myrna Loy."

Who wouldn't? Especially if he were attracted to Sara.

"A boyfriend?" I pressed, "What happened to this guy?"

"Go back to work, Greg."

I would have, but I really wanted to know what kind of guy she was into and I figured her answer may contain my answers. If she was into old detective stuff… "Must have been pretty important if you were willing to sit through an old movie with him."

"It was a good movie."

"Still…"

"Greg, don't you have any other people to process, or are you just processing showgirls who aren't your type?" She gave me a glare that turned into a smirk.

Sure I could process all of the others. I would too, after I gave myself a moment to breathe in her lingering scent and remember the feel of her lips whispering in my ear. After all, when a person could give his dreams a little taste of reality, why shouldn't he?

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: 1: A Chicago Overcoat is a coffin.

2: "_Only you, darling-lanky brunettes with wicked jaws,"_ is a line that comes directly from Dashiell Hammett's 1934 Detective novel, _The Thin Man_. The line also appears in the W.S. Van Dyke film of the same name, and same year.

Gotta say I love, love, love _The Thin Man_. Also gotta say I am having so much fun writing this. Please, if you are at all amused, send up a review. I'd like to know your thoughts.

Happy New Year


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"You were the one who found the girl?"

The short dark man I'd seen at the bar earlier gave me a quick nod. His name was Johnny Mathers and he'd been bartending at the club for about three and a half years. Apart from that, Brass hadn't been able to get more out of him, at least not about himself.

I gave him the up and down and watched as his hands clenched into fists by his apron. Grissom had once told me that the first man at a crime scene is the first suspect. He was our first man, and the way he shifted around and the way his eyes shot back and forth, he wasn't getting himself put further down on the list.

I pulled a swab and swiped inside his cheek. "When did you find her?"

"I don't know. About quarter after two. She was supposed to be on stage doing another set." For what crowd, I wondered. There were seven people left in the building who weren't with the police. Apart from this bartender, the manager, who I had first seen outside, his gorilla at the door, and the showgirl I'd already processed, and who I had discovered had been holed up in a back office when I'd arrived, only a couple other people remained. Also holed up in the back office had been the manager's right hand man and a coctail waitress. That only left the dead canary.

Something didn't sit right. Lounge singers don't put on a set for an empty club, nor do showgirls come in to do favors. This place had a history of raids coming up empty. The police didn't watch and raid a place for no reason, and a place that was always empty didn't stay in business long. There had been other birds there, but how they'd gotten away unseen was a mystery. The brass had been able to respond in under two minutes. Had any of the birds tried to escape through the alley, they would have been spotted and taken in. Not too many ritzied-up people tend to emerge out of back alleys. Even in Vegas.

I tried to think of who would have been there – the same people who'd been coming to this joint for years, people who wanted to come in under the radar, at least as far as hanging out at old mob cafes were concerned. Maybe it was a couple of butter and egg men who wanted to shoot the wad at the notorious _Ric's, _but got freaked out by a dead body they didn't want to have anything to do with. Or, perhaps the birds had been more important – some highbinders putting in with the wrong crowd behind the scenes. Being seen with the dead body of a young woman in the notorius _Ric's_ would put the kibosh on their careers.(_1)_ Or maybe these plugs had been running a grift and had to get any marks out when something went wrong so that they could continue to sell the grift.(_2)_ Regardless, a girl was dead, and there were a few people who had scrammed out. Even though our bartender with the shifty dark eyes was looking pretty good, I couldn't help but wonder if our hatchetman had escaped along with them, and how.

I glanced about the empty room and eyed the bartender again. "What set, Johnny? There's no one here."

He smirked. "It was a rehearsal set."

"Where did all the customers go?"

"What customers? This is a private establishment." He held out his hand for me to print. His hands were small, rough. I thought about the marks on the victims neck and reminded myself that I might have to check these hands out again. I looked up at their owner. The corner of his lip curled up.

The cat could play cool; I had to give him that, though I got the impression the whole confidence thing was just a front. Beneath it all I could glimpse a scared young man inside him. His hands had shook a little when I'd printed them. I glanced over at Lauren Perske, the showgirl who said she'd been doing a favor for a friend. "The managers always bring in showgirls and waitresses for an empty building?"

"What showgirl? Lauren is Harry's girl. She dances at the Tangiers. She's probably here off work."

"She doesn't change before she leaves?"

Johnny Mathers shrugged. A gasper hung from the corner of his mouth, lit, but I hadn't once seen him inhale. His shifty eyes shone with his smile. "Look, I liked the girl; she was alright, but she was a hop-head. I figured she gave herself too much candy."

"Are you saying she liked hitting the pipe?"

He chuckled. It was a nervous sort of laugh. "I don't know about that, but every once in awhile you'd see her all gowed-up on heroin. Definitely liked the smack. Couldn't get off the stuff."

"You found her. What about the marks on her neck?"

"What marks?" He smiled, the slick kind of a smile you'd want to wipe off a face. "I didn't look too closely."

I let that go. The evidence would tell us if he was on the up and up. I watched his eyes shift around. "What about you?" I asked.

"What about me?"

"You like hitting the pipe?"

He laughed that same nervous laugh again. "Copper, this ain't no den. Just because the canary liked her hop, doesn't mean anybody else did."

"Do you know where she got it?"

"None of my business." His fingers moved to his gasper and lifted the butt from his mouth. "We done?"

"For now."

He smiled and snuffed out the cigarette. I watched as he strolled out the door, into the darkened hallway before I took his samples and placed them into my kit.

"You think you can put the screws on me?"

I lifted my head and looked over to man yelling at Brass. Harry Montoya. He was a skinny bird, running about 5'9. His jet black hair was slicked black. He carried a bit of scruff around the jaw. He wore pinstripes, but not nearly as nice as the manager, Vito Fava's. Montoya was apparently Fava's right hand, and apparently their showgirl, Lauren Perske, was his squeeze. I stood up and moved towards Brass and him. "Mr. Montoya, I'm Greg Sanders. I'm with the crime lab. I'd like to get your prints to eliminate you as a suspect."

"Copper, you ain't getting a damn thing."

I glanced at Brass and watched as he stepped right into the man. "We're going to get your prints and your DNA. You can give them to us voluntarily, or we can run you in."

"Then you better pull out the bracelets, flatfoot."

I saw Brass glance quickly at his cuffs, tempted. I figured he'd find some reason to run the man in, but I wanted to ask the bird a few questions first. I stepped between them. "We aren't charging you with anything, Mr. Montoya." I glanced at Brass before turning my eyes back to Harry Montoya. "Not yet, anyways. We just want to talk."

"About what? I don't know nothing from nothing."

"Why'd you have your girlfriend come down here in her showgirl get up?"

He shrugged. A smug sort of smile formed upon his face. "I get a kick out of it. Thought she could give me a private show."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah, that's so."

"Did you also get a kick out of having a waitress on duty and a lounge singer in the ready?"

He shrugged again. "Might need a drink. Besides Vito had those girls on." He smirked. "Don't know what he was planning; you'd have to ask him."

Some friend, I thought. A pal like that and someone was bound to end up with a bullet in the back. I glanced over at Vito Fava and turned to watch Harry Montoya lean causally back against the bar. He seemed relaxed, not at all concerned about anything he'd said. He and Fava went way back. They drank from the same cup. Fava had the dough, but he cut his pal into it. Fava also had the muscle and Montoya didn't strike me as a bird dumb enough to cross him. Harry Montoya wasn't putting the finger on Fava. He was getting a kick out of brushing off our questions. Those two birds were hiding something. I glanced over towards the Bruno. "A bouncer at the door?"

Montoya's smirk grew. "Cal is always on. So is Johnny. The place can't run without a doorman and a bartender."

Beside me, Brass smirked. "Sure, you couldn't afford to lose any customers," he deadpanned.

"Look flattie, I'm done talking to you."

"Yeah, sure. Now you can come down town and we can see about getting your prints." Brass grabbed him by the arm and began to escort him to the door.

"Wait!" I stopped them. "Know anything about Camille Vanasse doing the smack?"

"No, I ain't seen it, but I figured her for it. Always was a little spacey. Didn't know if it was a frog thing or a drug thing."

I ignored the frog remark though I could see Brass wanted to take a poke at him just as much as I did. I wondered how he'd react if someone slurred his Italian roots. He probably wouldn't like that too much. It could cause his temper to flare up. Brass gave his arm a twist. I eyed Brass's hand on his arm before glaring at him. "Know where she got it from?"

He smirked and shook his head. I hated how tight-lipped these birds all were, though I should have suspected it, the word being mum on anything Ric's.

I watched Brass escort him away. Grissom would get Montoya's prints and DNA after he finished up processing our dead girl. As far as I was concerned, Montoya was all Grissom's. I still had a couple of others to process and I wanted to get back to processing the rest of the joint. I moved back into the back room where Camille Vanasse's body had been found. From the door I watched as Catherine Willows lifted up a gloved hand and held up a bindle to Sara. Sara's eyebrow rose. "Nose-candy?"

"Johnny Mathers said she was on smack," I put in from the door. Both Sara and Catherine looked up at me. I shrugged. "Harry Montoya figured she was hitting it as well."

"Is it possible we're looking at an overdose and not a murder?"

Catherine and I stared at Sara. I stepped into the room. "Everybody is keeping pretty tight lipped, if that's the case."

"Well, considering where we are…"

I nodded. "I don't buy the whole, 'this place was empty' bit though. This place has a history of being conveniently empty and you don't hire help for an empty room."

Sara nodded. "I know what you mean, but the place was clean."

"Maybe everybody split with their stuff. Didn't want to leave anything that could place them here?"

Catherine nodded. "They wouldn't have fled if nothing was going on here, even if whatever it was wasn't related to the dead girl."

"So what do you think happened to them?"

I shrugged. "I figure they must have lammed off once the body was discovered."

"Taking everything with them, but how?"

I looked down at Sara and raised my shoulders in another shrug. Catherine stood up. "Greg, you process the bar yet?"

I shook my head. Catherine looked to Sara. "Sara, why don't you start there? If anybody did flee with their stuff, there has to be some glasses or something missing, or maybe you'll find some dirty ones. They only had a short few minutes to clear the joint, so maybe they missed something." She turned to me. "Greg, if you're finished with the people who did stay behind, why don't you take a walk and see if you can find anyone who may have seen someone leaving at twenty after two this morning. I'll finish up in this room."

I nodded. I had a couple of people left to process. If I couldn't get anything out of them, it was time to put some wear on my shoes.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **1: A highbinder is a corrupt person who holds some position of power (a politician for example).

2: A grift is a confidence game.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **I just wanted to send up another disclaimer and restate that everything in this story is purely, purely, purely fictional, and purely my imagination, except for the characters, who belong to CBS, and the history behind the Cal Neva Lodge. Information on the Cal Neva Lodge came from the History TV television show _Cities of the Underworld, _hosted by Don Wildman, in an episode entitled "Secrets of Sin City."

Thank you to the people who are taking the time to review. It means the world.

**Chapter 4**

The sun beat down hard. The air was hot and dry. We'd been at the scene for hours, processing the joint and I hadn't been able to track down anybody who could say they saw our fleeing birds fly the coop. I was tired. My feet were sore. I helped load all of the evidence into Catherine's and Sara's Denali as mine was parked too far away. Apparently, they'd entered the alley from the other side; the side not blocked, and hadn't had to wander through the darkened alley searching for crime tape like I had. They were both amused. I was not.

I returned to the lab, logging in evidence when the boss came in and told me to finish up and go home. I was well into my second shift. We all were. The scene had been processed. No one was breathing down our neck about this case yet, though I knew, given the location, it was bound to happen. For now, everything could be put on hold until the next shift. It was a good time for a break and I could use it. I needed to get a few hours of shut-eye. I had a date later that evening with a doll I'd met at a forensics lecture at UNLV.

I felt well rested when I returned to the lab, eager to get on with the case. I had come in early, my date turning out to be a flat tire. When I arrived, Sara was already there, pouring over photos in the layout room. I hadn't expected her to be in yet, but why, I wasn't sure. Sara was always in early, though not quite so often these days. I walked in and stood beside her. "You're here early, Greg."

"So are you."

She smirked. Her fingers lifted a photo of the club and she stared at it. "Tell me something; why would anyone choose to go to a back alley dive when there are so many places to hit downtown or on the strip?"

"It's not a dive on the inside." _Ric's _was quite posh. The back alley entrance gave it a seedier look that need be, but inside was expensive furniture and elegant surroundings.

She glanced back at the photo. "Fair enough. Still, what is it about this place that makes peoples lips seal the way they do? I've never even heard of the place. Why is it so legendary?"

I lifted a photo and studied it. I could still picture Catherine there, hobnobbing with someone important. A Vegas girl who had access to the place, I couldn't see her not trying it out in her youth. "It's exclusive, very exclusive. Ricardo's Café Italiano." It had first entered my radar when I had read Lois O'Neill's book, _Kiss, Kiss. _Not much was said about it, but the circumstances surrounding the name had made me want to know more, so I had dug deeper. None of the old history books on Vegas mentioned it, but the name popped up in other places. I spoke to some people who repeated some of the whispers. Digging around, I found some stories of some of the legends surrounding the joint. The name had been an offshoot of Humphrey Bogart's gin joint in _Casablanca, _"Rick's Café Americaine." Apparently, the owner, Ricardo Ajala was a big fan of Bogart and thought it would be cute to use his name as a play on words for the gin joint in the film. I began to tell Sara a little of what I knew.

"It was an old mob meet place Kansas City Crime Boss, Ricardo Ajala opened up in the mid 50's. With eyes on Vegas, Ajala wanted to find some hole where they could meet under the radar."

"They build these nice casinos and they decide to meet in back alleys? I don't get it."

I smirked. "Walk through a casino to see the owner in his office and somebody is going to see you. Some of those birds couldn't be seen in a casino."

"But everybody knew who built the casinos, even if they hired men with better reputations to run them."

"Yeah, but it wasn't only the Kansas City guys, or the Chicago guys he built the joint for. It was all those other birds the joint attracted, the kind of suits that shouldn't been seen meeting with goodfellas. J. Edgar Hoover was very interested in the joint."

"I'll bet."

"Well, that interest actually came a little later. For the first few years, the joint stayed under the radar. For years Hoover had been denying that there was a major crime syndicate in existance, and putting away members of the syndicate had been next to impossible as they had so many people, judges, politicians, in their pocket, including, some thought, Hoover. Hoover, concentrating on communism and invading the homes of ordinary citizens, all but ignored the mafia. Hoover was a bit of a gambler himself, so whatever was happening in Vegas, it didn't concern him. It was other people who began looking into the cats behind Vegas, and when those people began looking, they never thought to look into some back alley club. Turned out _Ric's_ was a great meeting place for corrupt officials, a gathering of highbinders and mob men. We're talking the men who ran Vegas, sheriff's, mayors, congressmen, a governor or two, plenty of higher-ups. Some of the biggest fixes in sports history were said to have been fixed in the joint."

"No kidding."

"The Morelli/Archer fight; Archer was the heavy favorite but got knocked out in the fourth round after dancing around and taking light jabs for three."

"Really?"

Sara turned to me. I could tell I had her interest. I loved telling a good story and having a pretty dame's eyes fixed on me. I decided to move to the really good stuff. "It was whispered that Peter Lawford hit the joint at least once every time he was in town."

"Peter Lawford? Come on, the Rat Pack was all over Vegas." Catherine had walked in. I looked up at her as she sauntered over to the table and smirked. "They hit every casino. They could hobnob with anyone they wanted. If they wanted to get away from the scrutiny, they had Sinatra's _Cal Neva Lodge _ up in Tahoe to go to if they wanted to hang out with mob men who couldn't be seen in a casino_.(1) _That was the big meeting place for people to meet up with people they shouldn't be seen with. Why would they hit a back alley dive?" Catherine stood next to Sara, watching me, both eyebrows raised.

"_Ric's _was like the _Cal Neva Lodge, _Vegas style, but a club rather than a lodge, and this one was right in town, close to the action. Certain people could go to _Ric's _and escape scrutiny in the same way they could have at the _Cal Neva, _and they were finished at the _Cal Neva _in '63."

I thought back to the history of Sinatra and the _Cal Neva Lodge, _an interesting history that ended quite abruptly in '63. Sinatra had let go of his interests in the _Cal Neva _that year. A big, reputable name, his was actually a frontman for Chicago mobster Sam "Momo" Giancana. Sinatra's name attracted too much attention, and in '63, he lost his gaming licence when authorities caught Giancana, listed in Nevada's Black Book at the _Cal Neva.(_2) _ _Men in Nevada's Black Book could escape that at _R__ic's. _One table that doubled between poker and black jack and one roulette wheel , it couldn't be considered a casino, and the joint had never applied for a gaming licence. Whenever the Feds raided the place, they could never prove the poker table and roulette wheel where there any more than for show. They'd never caught anybody at the joint let alone gambling in it.

"_Ric's _was hopping throughout this period. Nobody on the outside could get in, and if the Feds decided to raid the place, they came up empty. That was attractive to certain people. When Peter Lawford was in Vegas, he liked to go to _Ric's_, and it was whispered that he liked to bring company, and not always his fellow Rat Packers."

I waited. One of Sara's eyebrows rose. "You're saying…?"

"It was rumored."

"Unconfirmed."

I nodded slowly, holding her eye. "But, by association…"

I caught the glint in her eye. Her head cocked to the side. "So, what about…?"

I shrugged. "Them too, or at least so it's been said."

Sara grinned wide. "No way. You're trying to tell us…?"

I grinned in return. "It may interest you to know that Hoover's interest in the joint certainly grew after 1960."

I watched as Catherine shook her head. Sara turned to her. "You're a local, Cath. Have you heard any of these old folk legends?"

Catherine nodded. "Vegas lore, I've heard it all."

Sara turned back to me, her brown eyes fixed on mine. "Go, on."

"Well, Ricardo had everyone who was anyone meeting at his joint, Mayors, Congressmen, Senators, and so on…" I said, emphasizing the so on. "See, it wasn't the Kansas City boys Hoover had been interested in, but everybody else. He had dirt on everyone, and could get dirt on anyone, but really good sink or blackmail dirt, well that could come from getting inside _Ric's. _Plenty was happening under the table, and no one could afford to be exposed. Hoover could get into their offices, their homes, pretty much anywhere but he couldn't find a way into _Ric's. _Of course, all those birds could have met elsewhere, but in those early years, _Ric's _turned out to be a great location. Ajala had them all eating out of his hand."

I paused and took a breath. Catherine and Sara were both still watching me.

"Anyways, Hoover tried to infiltrate the place. Sent some G-men in, but the G-Men were given the bums rush at the door. So Hoover sent more G-men in, even raided the joint, but word got out about the raid just before it happened, and they ended up raiding an empty joint. They didn't figure word could have gotten much sooner than the raid, so how everybody had managed to lam-off was never known."

"Just like with us."

"Right. Disappeared into the night. The Feds were unsuccessful in that raid, but the stories of _Ric's _never stopped. If someone wanted a certain favor, they went to _Ric's. _They could run bets out of the place, bring in exotic dancers if a customer wanted a discreet dance, or a pro skirt if that customer wanted something more. They ran fixes and made deals. People who were making a reputation of cleaning up government were mingling with people known for just about everything but being clean. Even though the name was known, nobody could get inside, so it remained safe for all of those highbinders. However, nothing can be kept totally secret and some whispers got out. Plenty of scandals uttered about the place over the years and plenty of people who wanted to keep a clean reputation were mentioned in those whispers."

"Such as?"

"Well, apart from certain government officials, one of the regulars there was Daniel Steinbauer." I looked at both Catherine and Sara. They were looking back at me, waiting. "Grandson of Archie Steinbauer," I finished.

"Alright, Greg," Catherine cut in, "you got me. Who is Archie Steinbauer?"

"He was head of the Nevada Temperance Society." I spun around as Grissom entered the room. He nodded at me. "Go on, Greg."

I glanced about before nodding. Looking back at the girls, I continued, "Yeah, uh, like Grissom said, Archie Steinbauer was once the president of the Nevada Temperance Society. He was a big time litigator, known for his fiery oration. Back during the big kick towards prohibition in the United States, Archie Steinbauer was a very vocal voice. The family came from old money, very respectable. Archie Steinbauer's son and David Steinbauer's father, Isaac Steinbauer, was a Rabbi, and very involved in the Zionist movement. David Steinbauer, inheriting the family's name and fortune had a very reputable future set out for him. Only, he chose to play playboy and almost lost it all. You see, his family told him to straighten up or he would never see his inheritance and he needed the Steinbauer reputation to be successful on his own, so he took his playboy ways and hid them in a back alley gin joint. Of all the places in Nevada for his name to be associated with, _Ric's _was one of the last ones anyone in the family would have approved of."

I paused again in my storytelling and looked up at my captive audience. Catherine smirked. "I have to admit, Greg, that is a good story, but I've got a better one."

My eyebrow rose. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Why haven't you mentioned the dead girls yet?"

"Wait," Sara began, her voice excited, "what dead girls?"

I turned to Catherine. "You know something about them?"

She cocked her head and then shook it, her lips smiling. "No, but I've heard the stories. You don't grow up in Vegas without hearing them. Just wondering why you hadn't started with it. Or had you heard those ones?"

Of course I had. A couple of dead girls over the years associated with a place are never left out of a good story, but I believed in the build-up. I figured Catherine had heard it all, so I couldn't count of a flattering reaction from her, but I wanted to see the glint in Sara's eyes when I dropped that bomb. Catherine had stolen that moment. I glanced around. Everybody was waiting. "Yeah, I've heard those stories. I was just getting to them."

Catherine smirked. "In that case, I'll let you tell them."

I leaned back against the wall and crossed my arms. One ankle hooked over the other. "I guess I should begin in 1964. It was a cool night, late in the year. On the strip, the lights were shining and the casinos were hopping. In some dark alley though, somewhere near Fremont Street, perhaps the even the alley you enter _Ric's _from, some beat cop strolling around strolled right on up to the body of a dead girl.

"The dame was young and very beautiful, a knockout. She had the body of a dancer, and the outfit that she was found in confirmed to the police that she was a showgirl. She was lying on the ground, her body twisted upon the cool pavement of that dark alley. Her straight brown hair had fallen across her face and her throat was slit.

"The girl didn't have anything in her possession, so the police immediately suspected a mugging. In fact, at first, everything pointed to that. A back alley stabbing, no purse, bruises around her wrists like she'd been trying to fight back, and another across her jaw, perhaps to shut her up. Despite the fact that the girl had no wallet, the police were able to ID her, and that is when things began to get interesting.

"The brunette was Laney Hathaway. She was twenty-two years old, reported missing by an elderly neighbor. When the fuzz responded to the missing person's call and went to the girl's apartment, they discovered it was the same girl they'd found in the alley a few days before. Around the apartment were several photos of her and other girls in their showgirl outfits, one picture displaying her in the same outfit she'd been found in.

"Now, the police had figured her for a showgirl, so the pictures came as no surprise. What did surprise them is that they couldn't find the joint that had employed her. She didn't work at any of the casinos downtown or on the strip."

I paused in my story and looked around. Sara grinned. "She worked at _Ric's._"

I snapped my fingers and pointed at her. "Right on the money. See, in those days, _Ric's _employed showgirls, several of them. They ran like any nightclub on the strip, crooners, canaries and showgirls, and Laney Hathaway was one of those girls. Now, this may have gone undiscovered, but for a couple of things. See, Laney Hathaway wasn't just a _Ric's _showgirl, but one of the manager's girls as well. She was often seen on the town on the arm of Nicky Fava…"

"Nicky Fava?"

"That's right, Vito's Fava's father. The running of the joint passed down from father to son. Nicky Fava was known as a very handsome man and he never escaped notice, so it figured that the dish he had on his arm couldn't escape notice either, and back then, he had Laney Hathaway on his arm more than any other. Now her name was in connection with the place."

I paused again, taking a moment to catch my breath. Two sets of eyes were fixed on me. The third had disappeared. Grissom had taken off suddenly in typical Grissom fashion. I wondered if he didn't like a good story. Maybe he'd already heard it. Anyways, it didn't pay it any mind. He was known for his disappearing acts. He could vanish like the patrons at _Ric's. _I looked at my remaining audience and continued. "Now that was one thing. The police could figure her name in connection with _Ric's_. Now, the other thing involved the Feds."

Sara and Catherine looked at me, Sara's eyes full of interest; Catherine's full of knowing amusement. She already knew the legend. The chronicle was entirely for Sara.

"After several attempts, Hoover was actually successful at getting a G-Man inside. The man was Casey Shaw. Shaw was a clever young bird, showed a lot of promise. He also had a few wrong connections, and that was what had got him on the inside. For a couple of months, he was all over the joint, swinging with the cats Hoover was trying to get dirt on. Legend has it, he was at _Ric's _the night of Laney Hathaway's murder and he had witnessed Hathaway arguing with Fava's button man. Now it was figured that up until that point Shaw was enjoying his new lifestyle and in an effort to prolong that lifestyle, wasn't reporting back on _Ric's_. He was supposed to bug the joint, but kept making the excuse he couldn't get the equiptment in yet. It took time to be trusted, he told his boss, but really he was just sitting back and enjoying the lifestyle. The girl's death changed that. See, Shaw was secretly in love with the girl, but, knowing how dangerous it was to be in love with Nicky Fava's girl, he kept quiet, confiding in only one person, a buddy at the Bureau. When the girl's body was found, Casey Shaw flipped. He dropped a dime to his supervisor and told him what he'd witnessed just prior to the girl's murder. The supervisor informed Hoover, but again, Hoover wasn't interested in anything mob related. He wanted the dirt on everyone else. Shaw was ready to go off the track and take matters into his own hands, but his pal talked him down, and talked him into biding his time. Shaw was left in place, with the belief that he would be ready to bug the place, but not long after, somebody had him made and Shaw disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again. The theory goes that he had been taken for a ride and given a shovel. Laney Hathaway's murder was put in the books as a suspected mugging – unsolved."

I stopped. The story of the first murder was finished. What I didn't tell them is that after I'd heard the story, I had looked up Laney Hathaway's case file. Penned in beneath the date of her death were the words, _Mugging – Unsolved. _The word _suspected _had never been put in.

Pushing myself up off of the wall, I glanced over at my colleagues. I had two beautiful dames looking at me, waiting for me to continue and I had another story to tell them, this one taking place twenty-one years later.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **1: The Cal Neva Lodge was a hotel owned by Frank Sinatra on the California/Nevada border on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe. Friends of Sinatra, celebrities and mobsters hung out there engaging in criminal or illicit activities until Sam Giancana was caught at the hotel causing Sinatra to lose his gaming licence. (_From "Secrets of Sin City," **Cities of the**** Underworld**)_

2: Nevada's Black Book was a book that listed "undesirables;" people not allowed to enter a casino. Sam Giancana was one such individual, though he had interest in the _Cal Neva_. Sinatra was thought to be a frontman for Giancana. (_From "Secrets of Sin City," **Cities of the**** Underworld**)_


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **_Disclaimer: _While all the history surrounding _Ric's _is fictional, the history behind the crackdown of the mob in Las Vegas comes from a May 15, 2008 article of the _Las Vegas Sun._

**Chapter 5**

"The next part of the story," I began, looking at both ladies, "begins in the very early hours of a January morning, 1986. It was just after New Years. The city was filled with tourists high off the celebrations a couple of nights before. On New Year's Eve, all of the big celebrations took place on the Strip, and those celebrations on the Strip included all of the major players involved in Vegas' drama in those days. Two days later, some of those men were back at _Ric's_."

I paused, leaning back against the wall again. Both Sara and Catherine were looking at me. I had their full attention, something I couldn't cop to being used to. This story was past history and none of us figured it had anything to do with what had happened very early this morning, but Catherine and Sara were still listening, letting me tell them some of the history behind the establishment we were investigating. I went on.

"Now, _Ric's _wasn't quite the establishment it was a few years before. Vegas had changed. Those days, it was nearly dying. Beginning in the late 70's, annoyed with the way the Mob had been skimming off the top on their casinos, keeping a chunk of their income "tax-free," the Feds had begun to crack down on Mob interests in Vegas, releasing affidavits with allegations on a number of criminal offenses on the part of certain casino owners. They were brought in on loan-sharking, racketeering, embezzlement, fraud, conspiracy, you name it. There were still some players with pull, but a lot of the big names had been indicted and ownership of the casinos had been wrestled away from the Mafia-tied casino owners now serving big sentences for their crimes, and then handed over to legitimate owners."

I watched as Sara crossed her arms. "We know that part of the history Greg; they lost their gaming licenses and went to prison. We've also both seen _Casino,_ so you don't have to go in depth there. What I want to know is what happened at _Ric's._ You and Catherine mentioned dead girls – plural, meaning more than one."

The story was getting long. I was aware of that. But I wanted to make sure they got all the important facts. I don't know what Catherine had heard, but given how I'd looked into it, it was a fair bet that I had a little more in depth knowledge, at least about this part. Knowing we had to get back to work though, I decided I'd better hurry the tale along.

"Well, _Ric's _managed to escape all of that. It wasn't a casino, so the Nevada Gaming Commission couldn't revoke any gaming license. Every time the Feds had tried to raid the joint, they came up empty. The place was cleaner than how we found it," I stated, adding in my mind, _no dead girl, no workers still at the joint._ "Someone was tipping them off on the raids, giving them time to get the clean sneak. The Feds couldn't get anything on the place or the people who ran it, so they lost interest, which wasn't hard to do with so much else, and so many others, Giancana, Tony "the Ant" Spilotro, Lefty Rosenthal, holding their attention. _Ric's _was small fish to them, and with nothing to go on, the Feds continued to go after the bigger fish, leaving _Ric's _all but untouched. That changed on that early morning in '86. For a very short time, _Ric's _had their attention once again."

"So what happened?"

I smirked. "Well, a couple of tourists thought they'd cut through an alley and heard a scream coming from inside a building..._Ric's_. They called the cops, but when the cops got there the joint was empty. Everyone inside had gotten the clean sneak again. One story is that someone tipped the first responding officer a few C-notes to give them time to scram off. Whatever happened, the police had nothing to go on. They searched the joint, but couldn't find a thing. A couple days later, the body of a dead cocktail waitress, Victoria Harlow, was found in a dumpster a few streets over. She'd been dead for two days. The police report stated that she'd been strangled. Defensive wounds suggested she'd tried to fight her attacker before he'd subdued her. She worked at _Ric's_."

"Wow."

I nodded. "Two dead girls, both associated with the joint – both murders unsolved."

"Now we have a third." Sara paused. Her brow furrowed. "So what goes on at _Ric's _now?"

"Not much. Nothing's been said about it for years. One thing is for sure, the place has changed. Now it's just a club, very private still, but more likely to host weekly poker games for big wigs or out-of-towner Rubes with a large money roll. It would also still be a discreet place to go if someone wanted to do something illicit without risk of exposure, call in a few favors from some people on the outside. I'd place a C-note on Fava running bets out of there too. That Nicky Fava's son still runs the joint, I'd be willing to bet there are some other, not so above-board activities going on there."

"Something was happening there last night. They had a showgirl in costume in the building and a lounge singer running sets."

Catherine moved from her position and leant up against the lay-out table, her hands bracing her. "So, what do we know?"

"Not much," Sara started. "We have a dead girl with strangulation marks on her neck and heroin in her dressing room. The only people who were at the club when we arrived worked there or, in the case of Greg's showgirl, was involved with someone from there, but we suspect other people had to be present. When I searched the bar for missing glasses, I found space for a few glasses, but not enough to suggest that any glasses were actually missing. There were a couple of holes in the wine rack behind the bar, suggesting that some wines had been taken out last night. I mean, I would assume they would restock the wine rack every night. We have to wait for our results to come in before we know more."

Grissom took that moment to breeze back into the room. "Let's hope some of them come in soon. I just met with the Undersheriff and he is breathing down my neck. He wants this solved quickly."

We all stared at Grissom. Sara and Catherine shared a look before Catherine smirked. "And what did you tell him?"

"What do you think? I told him that evidence can't be rushed. Anyways, I just came up from the morgue. I have the autopsy report."

"Didn't you sit in on the autopsy?"

"Hmm? No. Doc was busy with a body from Nick and Warrick's scene. He didn't get to the autopsy until late. He just went over it with me. Did you enjoy Greg's little story?"

I watched to see what Sara would say. She let out an affirmative sort of sound. "It was…informative."

"Does any of it pertain to this case?"

"Apart from the disappearing act everyone seems to pull? There is no evidence of that, but then again, we don't have much evidence of anything at this point."

Grissom nodded. I watched as Sara glared at him. He returned his glare with an impish sort of grin and handed her a file. She opened the file and spread the photos of the girl after autopsy over the layout table and then pulled out a report. "Respiratory failure, followed by Cardiac Arrest?"

"Yes." Doc Robbins stepped into the room.

"What about the strangulation marks?"

Leaning over the table next to Sara, I watched as Doc Robbins pointed down to a close up photo of the markings on Camille Vanasse's neck. "There are definite hand prints. Someone did try to strangle her, but that isn't what killed her." I followed his finger as he pointed to the neck. "The hyoid bone is intact, but that isn't necessarily indicative of anything. However," he paused and lifted another photo, "there was no petechial hemorrhaging, either."

I turned to the Doc, pointing at a photo of the dead girl lying on the chaise lounge the way we'd found her. "So she could have died of an overdose?"

He shrugged. "It's possible. I sent out for a tox panel. We'll have to wait for the tox screen to come in to find that. If she was on heroin, she didn't inject. There weren't any track marks."

"She could have inhaled, or snorted."

"Try snorted. I checked the nasal cavity. It was a fairly raw."

I looked at Doc Robbins, cocking my head to the side. "Is it possible to O.D. on smack by inhaling?"

"Technically? Yes. In practice though, it isn't very likely. Your victim would have had to have snorted a lot of heroin in a very short amount of time."

I nodded, taking in what the medical examiner said. Johnny Mathers had said Camille Vanasse was supposed to be doing another set. _Another_, as in one more. The word struck at me. Even though we hadn't been able to find the crowd watching the show, we'd figured there had been one. If it was another rehearsal set, it still implied she'd finished a set earlier. Had she been one to inject her junk, she could have reasonably overdosed in between sets, but she liked the nose candy and the only way for her to have overdosed that way was to have finished her set, gone to her dressing room and then snorted like mad. It didn't make any sense. Somebody had molded a rapper. "She had help."

Everyone in the room nodded. At that moment, we all knew it was made to look like an overdose. We weren't even sure what had caused her death yet; we had to wait for the tox panel for that.

I studied the photographs before me. Beside me, Sara did the same. "Doc?" she asked, "any signs of sexual assault?"

"The victim had sex prior to death. There was some scarring, indicative of rough sex, but nothing to indicate that it was not consensual. I sent a semen sample off to DNA."

Sara nodded, studying a photo in her hand. Grissom was looking over her shoulder at the same photo. "We have hand prints."

I looked up at Grissom. My brow was furrowed. Of course, hand prints. Somebody could have held her down and forced her to take whatever it was that killed her.

Sara smiled slowly. "Right. She had help."

Grissom smiled. "We need a hand span." He stopped and looked over at Sara. "Sara?"

She cocked her head, her smile still on her face. "I'll see if I can get an accurate measurement. Doc, can we see the body?"

The Doc nodded. "Of course." Sara was out the door in a rush, the Doc ambling slowly behind. Grissom followed.

I turned to Catherine. "I'm going to go see if any results came in from any of the labs yet."

Catherine nodded. "Sure. I'll put all of this away and get Brass to bring in all of the known players. We'll trace their hands at the station. Let me know if you get anything."

I gave her a wave, walking out the door and heading over to prints. Chances were they would be the first results to come in. Besides, I was still curious to know who may have been in the joint and finger prints would be the best way to find out.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

I stood in the door to the print lab, watching the disheveled swing shift print tech, a young kid, new here, shuffle around papers. He looked up at me and lifted an eyebrow. I stepped into the lab. "Mandy was running some prints for me?"

The kid gave me a short nod. "She didn't get very far before she had to head home." I nodded. I had expected that. There were a lot of prints.

"She get anything?"

The kid handed me a file. I flipped through it. No surprise there either. A number of prints belonged to all the cats we'd printed at the club. Our bartender, coctail waitress, showgirl, Bruno at the door and dead canary all hit on prints in the place. Vito Fava and his man, Harry Montoya, were large contributors. A bunch of the prints came back unknowns. None came back to anybody new – yet. Most of the prints had yet to be run.

I walked through the hall and flipped out my phone, dialing Catherine. "Cath, we got a hit on a few prints, but nothing probative. Fava's and Montoya's prints hit on the bar as well as all the other cats we printed. Got plenty of unknowns too. No new names have come up yet."

Catherine told me Brass was working on hauling in the cats for questioning. It would take some time before he could get anybody down there. Grissom and Sara still had to come up with an accurate measure of the hand prints. I wondered if any of the other results had come in yet. I doubted it. Tox hadn't had their samples for very long. Wendy Simms in DNA was very good about paging us with our results right away and standing in her lab waiting for her might give a beautiful kitten a nice set of claws. Trace didn't have anything. Hodges would have paged Grissom a-sap if that were the case, and if Grissom didn't want to listen to Hodges expend all his breath giving Grissom the lay, Grissom would have sent somebody else to pick the results up – probably me.

I decided to head to the break room. It was nearing the start of shift and I had hoped Warrick would be in. I wanted to grill him on being a runner_. _Besides, I felt I could use a good cup of joe.

The break room was empty when I entered. I emptied out the swill in the coffee pot and began to brew a batch of the good stuff. Watching the brown liquid drip into the pot, I grabbed a mug and waited. After the last drip fell I grabbed the pot and carried it, along with my mug, over to the table.

"Hey Greg, you planning on Bogarting that coffee?"

I looked up as Warrick entered the room laughing. He was followed by Nick. They pulled out a couple of mugs from the cupboard and sat across from me. "So, you gonna share?"

Warrick's green eyes were on me. Focused, intense, they were the kind of eyes that could cause a man to wither under their gaze. The look he was leveling me with made me think of all those cats who had to sit across an interrogation room table from him. Of all the stares I've witnessed, only Grissom's could match. Reluctantly, I slid the pot across to him.

Nick laughed good-heartedly. He was a good cat, a real straight-shooter. He could be a bit of a cowboy, a maverick, and I'd seen him get pretty competitive with Warrick and Sara, but he was also the kind of guy you could always trust to have your back, real dependable-like, a steady-hand. He'd always been straight with me. He poured himself a cup of coffee, took a sip and smiled wide. "How'd the date go, Greggo?"

I frowned. "Flat tire."

Warrick winced. "Sorry about that, man."

I shook my head and watched as Nick glanced at the file in front of me. "So, how's your case coming, Greg? I heard you got called to Grissom's 419, a dead girl at some private club?"

I nodded. "_Ric's._" I watched Warrick for a reaction. One of his eyebrows rose. I slid the coffee pot back across the table, lifting it to refresh my cup. "You ever been, Rick?"

Warrick laughed, a closed mouth short sort of titter. "Me? No."

I cocked me head to the side and lifted up my mug for a sip. "Heard you were a runner. You never ran a bet for someone out of there?"

Warrick sent me a look with his piercing green eyes. "Who told you I was once a runner?" I didn't respond. He nodded, his eyes glinting. He knew. Warrick's eyes were great for seeing some of those things other people might miss, people like me and like Nick. It was one of the things I respected about the guy. Warrick grinned. "Yeah, sure, but I stayed outside, firmly outside. Tried to take a peak once. Got into the hall between the two entrances, but there was some gorilla watching the door."

I stared at him. "What do you know about the place?"

He shrugged. "Just what's in those old Vegas folk tales." I nodded, letting him know I'd heard all the stories. He took a sip of his coffee and set the mug down. "Oh, and where the joint is, of course, so, probably no more than you do."

I was disappointed. I had hoped to meet someone who could give me the skinny on the place, someone I wasn't investigating and who didn't have an angle. Warrick was close, but he wasn't it.

"What is _Ric's_?" Nick asked.

Warrick and I exchanged a look. It was a long story, one I'd already told that day. I'd let Warrick give Nick the rundown on it. I listened, wanting to hear what he had to say.

"It's a back alley gin joint the Kansas City mob used to entertain at. Dirty politicians, officials, celebrities, anyone who rubbed elbows with the mob but wanted to keep their name clean in the papers, all went there. It was private, like entrance to the oval office private. No line-up at the door or anything, and just because someone was famous, or well known, or had connections didn't mean they could get in. The muscle at the door knew exactly who was allowed to pass, and he just gave people the once over. A person either got the nod and the door opened, or were given the bum's rush and were tossed out flat into the alley. It's still a private club where old mob men and old officials likely reminisce about old Vegas and the days when they ran it all while playing a few hands. As far as I know, they still run bets out of there, and likely they have some other racket going on. I heard the manager, Vito Fava, has a share in that young pug, Mickleson, the light-heavyweight who won the fight at the _Palms_ last week. Got shares in a couple of other local pugs in the middle and welterweight classes. Not much else is said about it these days. The place still exists because of the lore behind it. I've heard the club holds a nightly poker game, the same players coming, an exclusive bunch, each set hitting the table once a week." Warrick paused. I watched as he cocked his head. "Greg, if you're looking for someone who's been inside while the joint's been running, why don't you try asking Grissom?"

"Grissom?" The name caught me by surprise. Grissom was a science geek, a man who liked to play with bugs. He was also as straight as they came.

"Sure. Grissom used to sit down at a table."

Grissom played poker? I couldn't picture it. Sure, on some level, it must have made some sort of sense. Grissom had the best poker face of anyone I'd ever met. He also had the ability to read things in the same way Warrick did. Plus, figuring out percentages...

"Could you imagine going up against him at a table?" Warrick asked. I couldn't. Warrick shook his head. "He's sat across some big players too, Sheriff Montgomery, Sonny Bridges... He could have sat across from them at _Ric's_."

Nick scoffed. "Grissom told you that?"

"No, you know how Grissom keeps his cards close to his chest. No, man, Gris and I were working this case at the Bellagio earlier this year and we came across Sheriff Montgomery and Sonny Bridges having a drink. Montgomery asked Grissom where he'd been these past few months and why they hadn't seen him at the table."

"What did Grissom say?"

"He just smiled and wished them both well. Then we were on our way. As we were leaving I heard Sonny Bridges mentioning something about Grissom and a big pot. Grissom didn't say anything after that and I didn't ask, but you have to figure that if Grissom was playing cards with those guys, it was much more private club than anything else."

So Grissom had sat down across from some big cheeses. Apparently there was more to my boss than I had originally figured. What is that they say about still waters running deep? Apparently those waters ran very deep. If he had sat at the table at _Ric's_ I had to figure that he would have mentioned something. Then again, it was Grissom, and like Warrick had said, Grissom played his cards very close to his chest. Grissom had always been a bit on mysterious side. He didn't give up much about himself and I didn't think anyone really knew what he did when he left this place every day. I wondered what else he might be doing in his spare time. How many other secrets was he keeping from us? Maybe it was time to talk to my boss.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: **Just wanted to send up a huge thank you to those who have been reviewing.

**Chapter 7**

Nick and Warrick left me in the break room, getting back to their own case. They were working a murder at some creep joint off the strip. Some pro skirt had died after getting the Broderick and Warrick and Nick were looking for the last mug she'd tried rolling. It wasn't their first trip out to that joint and given how it rented rooms by the hour, it wouldn't be their last. It was the same old racket going on at that place as ever, another pro skirt meeting a tragic end at another Vegas dive. I was glad to get the case at _Ric's _instead, but than again, I wouldn't have traded this case for anything. I finished off my last cup of joe and rinsed out my coffee cup. It was midnight; time to get back to the business of solving crimes.

Grissom and Sara were still in the morgue. Brass was still trying to bring in our birds from _Ric's_. It didn't matter that it was the middle of the night. For these cats it was business hours, so it wasn't like we were going to interrupt their beauty sleep. Besides, we needed somewhere to start looking and hand span seemed like the best place.

Catherine had sent me a text. She had decided to go over the photos of the back room where we had found the dead canary, looking for something we may have missed. She was going to bring all of the photos to the layout room, so that we could both look at them while examining all the physical evidence we'd pulled from the scene. I was to get the evidence.

There were only a few boxes in evidence. I pulled the top one, but decided to bypass it for later. There was one box of evidence I wanted to look at first. I logged out my chosen box and carried it to the layout room. Catherine had pinned the photos up to the wall. I placed the box on the layout table and slit open the red tape.

Most of the items we'd collected looked as though they belonged to the victim. There were tubes of lip gloss – pink and sparkly, make-up cases containing powder a lighter olive coloring than our victim's natural skin color. We pulled costumes, evening gowns shimmering in silver with long slits running up the legs, others of glittering pink that left little to the imagination, scooping low in the front and containing almost nothing in the back and little black numbers that looked like they would hug in all the right places. I pulled out the last number, bagged separately by Grissom when he had processed the body, and tucked into the side. It was the seductive and dangerous red little number the victim had been wearing when she was killed.

I laid the dress out on the table and put on my goggles. Catherine put on her own goggle, brushing her strawberry blonde hair to the side, and still looking good despite the goggles. She pulled out a UV light, going over every inch of the dress slowly, looking for some biological evidence. Sara had pulled hairs and fibers from the dress at the scene, but I let my eyes scan over it again, holding tweezers in my hand, just in case she missed something. She hadn't. I hadn't expected she would.

Catherine's light stopped. She held the light above the fabric. There was a small round circle lit up along the hem of the dipping neck line. I held the light for her and handed her a set of scissors so that she could cut a swatch. Bagged and labeled, she set the swatch aside and continued on. I leaned in to where she had cut, running my gloved fingers over the fabric. The fabric was smooth. I liked the feel of it. I continued to finger the fabric. Then, my fingers stopped. Something felt different. The fabric didn't feel so smooth. It felt a little coarse. I leaned in closer. The fabric was slightly darker where my fingers had just been. It wasn't something that would have been detectable if I hadn't leaned right in.

I held my finger right next to the stain and grasped Catherine's wrist with my other hand, guiding her light to where my finger was. Her wrist was soft. I held it in place as I looked at the spot closer. Whatever caused the stain wasn't biological. I frowned and let go of Catherine's wrist. She moved the light down and leaned right in to the fabric. "Some kind of stain?"

"Not biological."

"Red on red?"

I nodded. Catherine leaned back. She pursed her lips. She looked kind of sexy when she did that, even beneath the goggles. "The autopsy report revealed wine in the stomach contents. Red wine stain?"

I leaned back in and sniffed. "Possibly."

Catherine handed me the scissors. "Good find, Greg."

I smiled and cut away the swatch, bagging and labeling it.

We finished with the dress, cutting away a few more swatches. Catherine offered to take the swatches to their respective labs, biologicals to DNA, the others to trace. I stayed back and examined the photos.

I was staring at the photos intently when Sara and Grissom entered with hand span measurements. Catherine followed them in, a file in her hand. "Wendy paged me right before I got to her lab. We have some DNA results."

I turned away from the wall of photos and took the report from her. "Two separate semen donors in our victim?"

Grissom and Sara both looked at me before turning to Catherine. I stared at her. She smiled. "Yeah, seems Camille Vanasse had sex with both Harry Montoya and Vito Fava before she was killed."

Sara frowned. "Montoya goes out with Lauren Perske."

"Motive?" Grissom asked.

I looked at the photos. Motive for Lauren Perske, sure, but we still weren't sure what caused Camille Vanasse to suddenly expire, and I couldn't see Lauren Perske holding Camille Vanasse and trying to strangle her, not without Vanasse being able to put up a good fight. Vanasse may have been thin like a pencil, but Lauren Perske was not much larger. The scene still looked like an O.D. Camille Vanasse was a hop head, but she liked the nose candy, so we figured if Camille Vanasse did O.D., then she had help. Maybe Lauren Perske had some help as well.

We all looked around at each other. Grissom turned to Catherine. "I found DNA under the victim's fingernails when I processed the body. Did Wendy have those results yet?"

Catherine shook her head. She scrunched up her nose. "What is the hand span?"

"Roughly twenty-one centimeters." He held up all of the diagrams he and Sara had made. It was hard to get an accurate hand span from a victim's neck, but Grissom and Sara were very meticulous and the measurement had to be close. I studied the diagrams and thought back to all of our cats' hands. I had studied them all when I had printed them, all except Harry Montoya, who'd been taken downtown and processed by Grissom. The twenty-one centimeter hand span might exclude the cocktail waitress, Adele Williams, but it didn't exclude the showgirl. Perske had long, lovely digits. From that measurement, the only other person I could exclude would be the muscle, Calvin Hellman. He had massive paws. They would be too large. The rest, I figured, would be close. If it was one of them, and not someone who had lammed off before we got there.

Grissom's pager beeped. We all turned and watched as he unclipped it from his waist and held it up before his eyes. "Brass has Harry Montoya at PD. Some officers are bringing in Vito Fava."

We may not have known what killed Camille Vanasse yet, but we had two semen donors to talk to, one at PD and the other on his way.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

I rode to PD with Grissom. It was a quiet ride, Grissom not being the kind of bird you engage in small talk with. For the first part of the drive, I stared out the window, watching the lights of the strip go by. The brightly lit casinos had a way of drawing you in. They were hypnotic, preying on your senses with their visual stimuli. They spoke of life and adventure, of flowing alcohol and hard cash ready for the taking if somebody could find a way to beat the odds. The street was luminous, a neon boulevard of dreams and broken dreams. Vegas was built on dreams. Dreams and mob money. Dreams and mob money and suckers waiting to be taken; ordinary rubes looking for a big score, mugs who thought they could beat the house…card players wanting to get into the big game. And it seemed Grissom was one of those players.

I turned away from the glitz and glamour of the strip and studied my boss. He stared straight ahead, watching the road. If the lights of the strip were at all of interest to him, well he hid it well. I still had a hard time picturing him sitting down at a table, but I chalked that up to a personality thing. I'd spent years thinking of him as a science geek. It was time to start thinking of him as the mysterious and secretive bird he was. And I saw it, Grissom at a table with some high pillow or other big cheese. Grissom would take their shirt.

"Greg, why are you watching me?"

I frowned. His eyes still hadn't left the road. I shook my head and leaned back in my seat. "No reason." I paused. "I heard you used to sit down at a table?"

"Excuse me?"

"Cards. I heard you used to play cards."

"Oh." He paused for a moment. "I did."

Good answer, I thought, short, didn't give away much, very Grissom. I waited to see if he would add more. The car grew silent. I looked back out the window. "Ever play at _Ric's_?"

I turned to him to see his reaction and was disappointed. No tells. "No."

"Never?"

His brow pinched in a slight frown. It was the most that I would get and I didn't know what to make of it. "No."

"Not against Sheriff Montgomery or Sonny Bridges?"

"I've never played at _Ric's, _Greg."

"Oh. Okay." I looked at the street ahead. So he hadn't played at _Ric's. _If I thought about it, I knew that it played. Grissom was too straight a bird to play at a joint with a history like _Ric's. _Still, he sat down at a table with some birds who weren't so straight. I glanced back to him. "Know anyone who might have?"

Grissom turned to bestow upon me a quick glare. I jerked a few nods with my lips pursed. "Claude Montgomery? Sonny Bridges? Another cat you sat down with?" I asked, thinking about how some of those old schoolers might like being dealt into more than one hand.

He didn't say anything. I looked forward and shrugged. "Or maybe one of the cats from _Ric's_ sat down across from you...somewhere else?"

"Greg."

The conversation was over. Grissom hadn't looked at me, but his tone told me that I had better drop the line of questioning. I was wise enough to do so. For awhile.

"You still play?"

I looked at him. This time he did glance at me. It was a short glance. His eyes turned back to the road. "No."

I wondered why he stopped. I didn't ask though. I doubted he would tell me. He didn't seem like he was in the mood to share. I looked back out the window, watched a few casinos pass by and glanced at him.

"So, where did you play?"

Grissom's eyes ranked over me. He let out one quick chuckle, like he was amused at the question or at my thinking I had a chance at hearing the answer. Then, he looked back at the road.

PD was busy for the middle of the night, but then again, when was the joint ever quiet? This was Las Vegas. I passed through the chaos of booking and strolled through the hall, my stride matching Grissom's. Brass was waiting for us in the observation room. We looked across the one way mirror into the interrogation room where Harry Montoya sat, leaning back in his chair, one leg sprawled out. His hair was slicked back. He was wearing a leather jacket, open over a light white collar shirt that had prints of green dollar bills all over it. The front had snaps, rather than buttons, running up the front. The top four snaps were undone, exposing part of his chest, curly dark hairs sticking up all over the place. He was chewing on something hanging from his mouth, likely a toothpick. His lips played with the thing, flipping it over in his mouth. His fingers tapped a tune on the table. I wondered what a dish like Lauren Perske saw in a skeezy wrong number like Montoya. She had said she was a sucker for excitement. Maybe she was attracted to birds like Montoya who carried with them an edge of danger. She wasn't exactly all soft edges either.

When his lawyer entered, Montoya didn't bother to straighten up. Brass looked over at us. "Montoya thinks he's a tough bird. Served a three-spot fifteen years ago for armed robbery. Charged with assault a couple of other times, but somehow managed to beat the rap. Charges were always dropped."

Grissom nodded. I glanced at the lawyer through the one way mirror. He and his client were a study in contrasts, one pretty on the outside, pressed suit and perfect smile, but likely all sleaze on the inside; the other was just all sleaze.

Brass glanced at the lawyer too. "You want to lead this one, Gil?"

Grissom shook his head. "No, you can take this one."

I watched as Grissom and Brass moved from the observation room and into the interrogation room. They sat across from Montoya, Brass to Grissom's right. Montoya smiled and lifted the object from his mouth, twirling it in his fingers. It was a toothpick. "You always pick up people for questioning in the middle of the night?"

"I'm sorry, were you sleeping?" Brass asked. His tone held its trademark sarcasm and I could picture the smirk plastered on his face.

"Maybe I was."

"Maybe you were knocking back drinks at _The Pussycat Lounge_ where the officers picked you up."

"What's it to you?" Montoya sneered. He lifted the toothpick and put it back in the corner of his mouth.

I watched with interest. Before me, Grissom was staring forward. I caught a bit of his look from the side and saw the poker face, his expression giving nothing away. I knew he was studying the interaction. Brass was sitting back in his chair, taking on an air of indifference, but there was an edge there, one you wouldn't want to cross. "Oh, I don't care what you do in your spare time. What I do care about is why you didn't tell us you'd had sex with the victim."

Montoya sat up. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Brass looked over at Grissom. Grissom stared at Montoya. Montoya had a funny look on his face and I figured Grissom's eyes were piercing. I watched as Grissom took over and went to work. "Sure you do. We have your semen inside the victim."

Montoya didn't say anything. He looked as though he was considering something. He pulled the toothpick from his lips, leaned over and whispered into his lawyer's ear. His lawyer whispered something back. Montoya leaned forward. "Camille was one of Vito's girls."

"She has your semen inside her."

Montoya was silent again. He leaned back in his chair and let out a breath. "Alright, I give. I slept with her – once, a couple of nights ago. So what?"

"So what?" Brass leaned forward next to Grissom. "She's dead."

"I've got nothing to do with that."

"You slept with her."

Montoya flicked the toothpick onto the floor. "Look copper, I didn't bang her to death. I banged her once. I was lit, out on the roof, and that skinny broad, she probably skated around plenty before she expired. What do you want from me, anyways? I thought she OD'ed."

We weren't sure on cause of death, but we couldn't let this bird know that. I quickly pulled out my phone and sent a text to Sara telling her about Vanasse being one of Fava's girls. She and Catherine should have been on their way to questioning Fava in another interrogation room by that then.

Grissom opened a file and took out a picture of the victim's neck, sliding it across the table. "Well, somebody tried to strangle her first. Can you place your hand on this, fingers spread out, please?" He slid a blank piece of paper across as well.

Montoya shook his head. "No way. You ain't gonna pin this on me."

I watched as Brass stood up and slammed his hand against the table. "We've got a warrant. That means you put your hand where he asks you to, or do you need help with that?" Brass's tone held that edge, the one you didn't want to cross, the one that said 'I've just come back from being shot so don't try to play the tough guy with me.' Brass could compare scars and he would win.

Montoya's lawyer whispered something to Montoya. He sighed and placed his hand down on the paper. Grissom stood up and traced around the hand.

Montoya crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "That it, or you gonna take something else from me?"

Brass leaned into him. "You got something else to give?"

Montoya smiled. "Nope."

Brass took his seat. Grissom sat down. He took out a ruler and measured the handspan. "Twenty-one point four centemeters." He slipped the measurement of Montoya's hand into a file. Brass leaned forward. "You said Camille Vanasse was one of Vito Fava's girls. What did Fava think of you sleeping with his girl?"

I leaned closer to the one way mirror, watching closely. Montoya smiled, slow and small. "Vito has a lot of broads."

"One of those dames is dead. How's he going to react when he finds out you slept with her a day before she died?"

"What's it have to do with the canary OD'ing? Vito has no reason to find out."

"Well, we think she may have had help."

Montoya laughed. "That dame did not need help. You got anything? I mean, really got something, or am I free to go?"

Montoya's lawyer finally decided to put his two bits in. The bird was awfully quiet for a mouthpiece. The old mob guys used to like having Oscar Goodman for a mouthpiece. That bird had a soundbite for everything, loved being the center of attention, still loved the attention. This bird was quiet, like too quiet. I wondered what his angle was. "You can't hold my client. Unless you plan on charging him with something, we'll be on our way."

From the window, I watched Grissom turn to Brass and shake his head. Brass sighed. "You're free to go for now, but stick around. We may have more questions for you."

I watched as Montoya sneered again. He stood to leave. His lawyer stood beside him and followed him out the door. As he left, I could only think about what a dirt bag Montoya was. I didn't like the bird. I didn't like his face. I didn't like his cocky attitude. I would have liked to have had something to put him in the jug for a night.

I was still staring through the one way mirror when Brass and Grissom came back in. Grissom handed the file with Montoya's hand tracing to me. I tucked the file under my arm. Brass turned to Grissom. "Do you like him for it?"

"His hand span is close, very close. If we took into account margin of error in our measurements..."

"Last I checked, juries don't like margin of error."

"It's impossible to get a completely accurate hand span from a victim's neck, Jim."

"I'm hearing reasonable doubt. Why didn't you ask him about it?" Brass asked. He had a slight frown pinching his brow.

Grissom frowned. "I didn't want to expose my hand. I want to wait until we have all the hand measurements."

Brass shook his head. "I like Montoya for this, or part of this. He kept talking about Camille Vanasse OD'ing, like he knew something, and he's beaten the wrap on assault charges before. Maybe he got a little carried away this time, panicked, and decided to make her death look like an OD."

Grissom gave Brass a look that had my insides squirm. "We don't have any evidence of that yet, Jim. We don't even have the tox panel yet. We don't know that Vanasse overdosed."

"I know. I'm just saying Montoya was putting a lot on Vanasse OD'ing."

I shot a glance between the two of them. "She was a junkie. Maybe he believes it."

Grissom nodded. "Well, I think whoever killed her wanted us to believe that also."

"What do we think about Fava?"

"Well, if Camille Vanasse was one of his girls, he had motive. We'll know more after Catherine and Sara finish questioning him."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

I was leaning against the doorframe of Jim Brass's office, staring out into the hall when Catherine and Sara came strolling in. They brushed past me as they entered the office. Sara slipped into a chair in front of Brass's desk, next to Grissom. She handed him a file. Catherine took a seat on the sofa. I sat down next to her.

Grissom flipped open the file. "20.8 centimeters?"

Sara nodded. "Yeah, it's close. Could easily be his hand. Margin of error…"

"Yeah."

Catherine crossed one leg over the other and leaned back on the sofa. "What about Montoya?"

"21.4 centimeters," I responded, holding out the file for her.

"It could be either one of them. And we still have four more hands to measure."

I leaned back against the sofa. "Well, Fava and Montoya are a good place to start. Both had semen in the victim."

"Motive?"

"Camille Vanasse was one of Fava's girls. She slept with Montoya. Gives Fava motive."

"Not to mention your showgirl, Greg, Lauren Perske."

Sara was smirking. I frowned. I couldn't picture Lauren Perske holding Camille Vanasse down by the neck without Vanasse putting up a good fight back. "Perske couldn't have held Vanasse down."

"She could have if Vanasse was already hopped up on heroin. Perske also could have had help. She had motive. Camille Vanasse slept with her boyfriend."

"What's your take on Fava?" Grissom asked.

Sara shrugged. "He's smooth, real smooth. Was brought in wearing a suit, perfectly tailored. Stayed very calm and controlled, even when Catherine grilled him on whether he knew his pal Montoya slept with Camille Vanasse. He didn't seem to care either way, when we told him. It was hard to get a read on whether that was genuine, or whether Fava is just a good actor, but I'd put my money on the actor. Certainly was trying to work the charm."

I watched as Grissom's brow narrowed. He was looking at Sara.

Sara shook her head. "He seemed very interested in speaking to Catherine."

I looked at Catherine. "Cross paths before?"

She shook her head and gave a small, disbelieving laugh. "A long time ago, Greg, and before you ask, not at _Ric's._"

I decided to drop it. Catherine wasn't copping to how she'd crossed paths with Fava, or her father's probable relationship to the man. I leaned back in my seat again. "He give you anything?"

Sara shook her head. "He said that he supposed a hop-head like her had slept with a few other guys. He dismissed his relationship to Vanasse, saying she was one of many girls, nobody special. Called her beautiful, but troubled. He told us Camille Vanasse was the kind of girl a guy couldn't help wanting to save. He said he'd wanted to help her, hired her as a lounge singer and spent a couple nights a week with her; took her out to the occasional dinner to keep her happy. He told us that he sleeps with most of the girls who work for him. Took on the role of a playboy, like his father."

I pinched my brow, wondering if Catherine knew him as the playboy. Brass leaned forward in his desk. "I don't buy it. Men like that think skirts like those are their property."

Catherine shook her head. "Maybe so, but he doesn't seem like the kind of man who likes to get his hands dirty. He has people to do his dirty work for him."

"Calvin Hellman."

I shook my head. "No way. I took a look at his hands when I printed them. I don't need a hand measurement to know his hand size isn't going to match up. The Bruno has massive paws."

Brass brought one hand up over his mouth. He leaned on his elbow and stared down at his desk. His hand fell away. "What about Montoya? Fava discovers his longtime right hand slept with one of his girls, and gets Montoya to knock the girl off himself. Fava and Montoya are tight and we all know Montoya has no problem getting dirty. He's a wiseguy, thinks the mob still runs Vegas, probably knows a few guys who still do, giving him a little cushion. If a fellow goodfella asked him to knock off the dame he'd slept with, I'd lay a couple of C-notes on him doing it, especially if he and the guy asking go way back."

"That's a pretty sick theory, Jim." Catherine spat out.

Brass shrugged. "Hey, I'm not saying it happened, but it wouldn't be the first time."

"We can't say anything happened, yet." Grissom cut in. "We don't have enough evidence."

"We know that Camille Vanasse had sex with both Vito Fava and Harry Montoya before she died," Sara put in.

Grissom nodded. "What else did Camille Vanasse do leading up to her death?"

The room was silent. I glanced around, watching everybody's eyes dart about. We all had the same thought. None of us knew what Camille Vanasse had been doing before she got bumped. The bartender, Johnny Mathers, had said something about her being in between sets. That was all we had. Catherine stood up. "I think it's time we learnt more about our victim." She turned and glanced down at me. "Feel like going for a ride, Greg?"

"Vanasse's apartment?"

"You coming?"

Of course I was. I wanted to get a good look where our canary perched in her down time. I stood up. "Let's go."

Brass stood up as well. "I'll ask Sofia to run Vanasse's background."

Grissom nodded. "Sara and I will stay here with Brass and continue with the interviews and hand measurements as our other persons of interest come in."

I followed Catherine out the door. We made our way through the halls of PD, past reception. Lauren Perske was just coming in. She smiled, her eyes glinting dangerously. "Hello, Greg Sanders."

My eyes gave her the up and down. She was wearing a black jacket over a pale blue blouse. Dark jeans covered up her gorgeous gams. Her blonde hair fell across her shoulders. "Just off work?" I asked.

Her eyes were still shining. "Yeah. You missed a good show." Her voice dropped, low and husky. "You really should come see it some time." Her head cocked slightly to the side. "On your way out?"

I gave her a short nod. "Yeah."

"Pity." She stepped closer and leaned into me. I could smell her lavender scent as her lips burshed against my ear. "I was hoping you'd be the one doing the interview." I smirked. I couldn't lie; I had hoped so too, but that was now Grissom's racket. I had another beautiful woman to get acquainted with – Camille Vanasse. I stepped back and shook my head. "Not this time."

Lauren Perske smiled. "Again, too bad." She turned away, glancing back to confirm I was watching her. I turned at her glance and headed to the exit, Catherine on my heels.

Inside Catherine's Denali, Catherine turned to me, smirking. "She's the dame Sara's been ragging you about. The showgirl?"

I didn't say anything.

"Greg, that woman has danger written all over her. Take it from me, women like that are trouble."

I looked at Catherine and smirked. "Funny, I'd kind of figured you for a woman like that."

Catherine returned my smirk. "Don't kid yourself." She paused, her eyes glowing with mischief. "I am." She started the car and we were on our way to our dead canary's apartment.

The ride to the vic's apartment held none of the glamour as the ride to PD had. We didn't drive past the lights of the strip but hit streets where a bird should be afraid to walk at night. This wasn't the glitzy boulevard of dreams but the place where all those dreams ended up in the gutter. Small lamps lit up sections of the streets, in the sections where the lamps hadn't been smashed. Homeless people either slept on the cold pavement, nestled up to graffiti littered buildings, or they padded along the street, offering up unintelligible mumbles. After blocks of dive after dive, we finally turned onto a street with only slightly nicer housing. Catherine pulled up in front of an apartment complex.

"Swell place Fava puts his girls up in," I deadpanned.

"Camille Vanasse was a junkie. Maybe this was all she could afford after paying for the nose candy."

"Or living around all the hop here made her one."

I opened the door, made a grab at my kit, and headed into the building.

Like _Ric's_, Camille Vanasse's apartment improved on entering. It was clean and open and warm. The inside of the joint was nice, real nice - almost too nice for this neighborhood. I wondered who'd helped her decorate a place this size, or where the dough had come from for some of the stuff in it. Camille Vanasse had some nice stuff.

The apartment had five rooms, kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom, and office. I started in the living room. The room was spacious, large, large enough to be converted from two rooms. I figured it was. The walls were a rich brown. The grand piano in the corner of the room was white. There was a bookshelf running along the side wall, next to the piano. The two pieces of furniture, one sofa, contemporary, and one chair, armless, contemporary, were a creamy white. Throw pillows and curtains were made of soft, dark turquoise fabrics. There were a couple of small wooden side tables, walnut, flanking the sofa. On one of the tables was a black picture frame. Inside the frame was a photo of Vito Fava with his arm around Camille Vanasse.

I picked up the frame and stared at it. Vito Fava was staring forward. Camille Vanasse had her head tucked into Fava's shoulder and had a smile lighting her dark olive, exotic face. Her green eyes should have been shining to match the smile, but there was a look of incredible longing in them instead.

I put the frame down and moved over to the bookshelf. There were a few more picture frames along the top, a younger Vanasse, smiling beneath an umbrella and wearing a wide neck t-shirt with broad horizontal stripes and a floppy, wide-brimmed straw sun hat. Her right arm was decorated with shiny silver bracelets. One leg was bent at the knee, displaying beautiful gams, bare up to the bathing suit bottom peeking out from beneath the t-shirt. The picture looked as though it had been taken by the sea. In another, she was seated at a café, glass of wine in her hand, her upper body covered by a sweater and a newsboy hat on her head, curls sticking out beneath. She wore a wide smile as she and a pretty companion laughed across the table. There was a photo of her singing in some nightclub - not _Ric's._ She wore a sparking floor-length blue dress and her hair was down, dark curls falling to her chin. The last frame held a photo of a little girl, dark olive skin, dark curly hair and intense green eyes, lying at the base of the Eiffel Tower and staring up. Two adults, a man and woman, both looking remarkably similar to her, flanked her. They were staring up as well.

She'd been beautiful girl, a beautiful child, in every picture. It was the last picture taken of her though, that would stick with me, one I'd been staring at earlier in the shift, the tragically beautiful corpse, her thin frame splayed out across a chaise lounge, green eyes open and staring up at me. I turned away from the photos and headed to the bedroom to see if Catherine had found anything.

The bedroom was sea green. The bed sat on a walnut frame and was covered by a cream colored duvet. There was a painting on the wall, of the sea meeting the beach, an umbrella in the foreground. A small black flowing _CV _was painted in the bottom corner.

Catherine was kneeling before a side table. She looked up at me. "Got a passport - French."

"France, French?"

"Not New Orleans French, Greg."

I let that thought sink in - Camille Vanasse, French chanteuse. I wondered prompted the canary fly to Vegas.

"I also found some brown powder in the drawer." She held up a baggie. "Could be heroin."

I nodded and moved closer. There was a picture frame on the table. I gestured to it. "You look at that yet?"

Catherine gave a soft nod. "Yeah." She picked up the frame. "Camille Vanasse and Vito Fava."

"There's another one in the living room."

Catherine held out the photo. "Look at how she's looking at him."

Camille Vanasse was staring at Fava like there was nothing else around. Her eyes were shining and a soft smile played across her lips.

"She was in love with him," Catherine whispered. I nodded. From the look in Vanasse's eyes, she'd been dizzy over him. Catherine placed the frame down. "So why would she sleep with Montoya?"

I didn't know why anybody would sleep with Harry Montoya. Vanasse was in love with another man. Lauren Perske could certainly do better.

"There's more to the relationship between Fava and Vanasse than Fava told us about," Catherine stated, cutting into my thoughts. "Wonder if he ever stayed here." She flipped the duvet back and opened her kit, pulling out her UV light. Her hand moved slowly over the sheet. Her hand stopped. "Semen, looks fairly fresh." Her hand moved again. "More semen stains, older. We'll bring this back to the lab."

I nodded. "Think it's Fava's, or do you think she and Montoya cozied up here?"

"We'll know when Wendy processes it. I'll check for prints before we leave, but right now, I want to get a look at the rest of the apartment."

Vanasse had a nice kitchen, large, clean, lots of counter space, and island in the middle. Her bathroom was small but clean, and it did have a large tub, one you could really sink into. It was the office though, that captured my interest.

I followed Catherine into the office. She had a desk full of papers, a lap top closed and placed off to the side, and speakers placed on the two back corners of the desk. There were stacks of CD's, rows of vinyls, and an instrument case in the corner. I moved over to it and opened it up. "The cello?"

Catherine moved next to me. "Camille Vanasse was a singer. Maybe she played an instrument as well."

"Or a couple instruments. There's that grand piano in her living room."

"Talented girl."

I nodded and closed the case. Catherine opened up Camille Vanasse's laptop.

"Anything there?" I asked.

"It's open to her music."

"Her taste in music runs towards the smooth jazz. Her vinyls and cds are mostly jazz artists, so I'm guessing it's the same for her mp3s."

Catherine shook her head. "No, it's her music."

My eyes shot to the laptop. Catherine looked at me. "Want to take a listen?"

I glared at Catherine. She hit a button and the soft sounds of a stringed instrument emerged from the speakers.

"Vanasse on the cello?"

Catherine nodded. She hit the cursor for the next song and a smoky French accent filled the room.

Her voice was pretty, all husk and smoke, made even more exotic by the accent. I remembered imagining it ran somewhere between Edith Piaf's and Ella Fitzgerald's. The exotic French sound made it a little more Edith than Ella, despite her singing in English. I stood listening until the song ended and the language of the next song changed from accustomed English to romantic French. This one was familiar. Camille Vanasse had recorded herself singing Piaf's _La Vie en Rose._ There was a sort of haunting sound to it.

Catherine stopped the music and sighed. "She had a beautiful voice."

I nodded. She had the kind of voice that could pull a guy in and never let go. Vito Fava had told Catherine and Sara that Vanasse was the kind of girl a guy couldn't help but want to save, and I could dig it.

Catherine clicked a few buttons, her eyes scanning over the computer. "Her browser history is empty. I'll get this to Archie and have him look around, pull up any emails, check out her history, see what she liked to look at." She flipped the computer closed and carried it out of the room.

Two hours later and we were finished with our canary's apartment. We pulled a few items for evidence, printed the place and were ready to head back to the lab. Catherine was ready to head home and keep a promise to her daughter. I wanted to find out why Fava hadn't been on the square with us about his relationship with our victim.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

I logged in the evidence and went around the labs, dropping off things to be processed – prints, swatches of Camille Vanasse's bed sheets, the brown powder from her side table. I stopped by the AV lab, but Archie had left for the day, so I took Vanasse's laptop back to evidence and logged it in too. Catherine was with me. We wanted to hit Grissom's office and give him the rundown before Catherine headed home, and I headed out to grab Brass and pull Fava in for more questions. Detective Sofia Curtis joined us in the hall.

"Got a minute?"

I let my eyes wander over her. Blonde, intelligent, she was all business. I'd liked her almost from the moment I met her, which was more than I could say for some other birds around here. Sara for instance… Sofia had come in an outsider, and had maybe begun to tread on some territory some of the others didn't want her treading over. At times I'd looked for a cat fight between her and Catherine, or her and Sara. That had passed though. Sofia had moved on to become a detective and she was a good one at that. I matched my stride to hers. "Got something for us?" I asked.

"Camille Vanasse's background."

I looked at Catherine. She was looking back at me. This was a story we wanted to hear. I followed the two girls as they veered into Grissom's office. They took the two seats across from Grissom's desk. I leaned against the doorframe and waited for Sofia to give us the skinny.

"Camille Vanasse is from a town in the south of France. The town's called Bandol. It's by the Mediterranean, in Provence," she began, glancing around at all of us.

So our dead canary was from the French Riviera? Catherine and I had known the little tidbit about France – the French passport had tipped us off. I'd been picturing something a little more Parisian though, Camille Vanasse bellowing out a ballad in a Paris café in her smoky French accent. Her dark olive complexion should have been the tip-off though, along with some of the stuff we'd found at her apartment.

I thought back to the photos of Camille Vanasse in her living room. A shot of her by the sea beneath a beach umbrella, another of her sipping wine at a small café. I wondered how a girl from the sea could leave that lifestyle to come live in the desert. Then again, Vegas had lured many young people with its glitz and glam.

I hooked one ankle over the other and crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for our fabulous flattie to continue.

"She entered the country two years ago from France, started with a traveler's visa, but then got herself a work visa, and almost immediately went to work for Fava as a lounge singer. She'd been employed by _Ric's_ ever since."

I watched from the doorway as Grissom nodded. "Did you get anything else?"

"Yeah." Sofia flipped through her file. "Camille Vanasse studied music at the _Conservatoire de Nice_. She was three years into her degree and a month away from beginning her forth year when she came over here. She also performed at the _Festival Jazz des Cinq Continents _in Marseille in 2003."

"Family?"

"She was an only child – no siblings. Both her parents are still living in Bandol. We haven't had any contact with them yet. Brass contacted French authorities and asked them to notify the family. "

Grissom was jerking a nod. I thought about Camille Vanasse's folks getting the next-of-kin notice from a couple of uniforms with no information. It was a hard way to get the rumble.

"Sofia," Catherine asked, "did Vanasse study the cello at the Nice Conservatory?"

From where I stood, I couldn't see Sofia's reaction. I envisioned her eyes widening at Catherine's Grissomesque move. "Yeah," Sofa drew out slowly, "and the piano."

Grissom looked at Catherine. She returned his look. "There was a cello at Vanasse's apartment. There was also a grand piano."

Grissom's brow furrowed. "A grand piano?"

I stepped into the room and stood just behind the two seated girls. "Yeah. White. Swanky." I made a clicking sound out of the side of my mouth to emphasize the swank. "Catherine and I figure she could have brought her cello with her when she relocated, but a grand piano?"

Grissom jerked another nod. "It's more likely she purchased it here," he said.

"How does a girl who'd dropped out of college, moved continents and got a job as a lounge singer in a small private club afford a grand piano?" Sofia asked.

"Somebody got it for her."

I looked at Grissom. "Right, the same person who furnished her apartment." I handed Grissom the card from my camera. He plugged it into his laptop and brought up the photo's I'd taken of Vanasse's apartment.

Sofia moved around the desk, leaned forward and studied the images. She whistled. "That's what the inside of her place looks like? I saw her address. Her building is a dive."

"It was probably all she could afford." I didn't figure Vanasse's salary for carrying her too far, not after she coughed up for the candy. I looked from Sofia to Grissom. "I'd lay odds on, Fava had someone clean it up and furnish it for her. He probably bought her the piano too. There was more to his relationship to Camille Vanasse than he copped to. She was dopey over him."

Catherine nodded. "The relationship may have been casual to him, but to Vanasse…she's got a picture of the two of them by her bed and another by her sofa. From her look, he was it."

I jerked a nod in agreement. "Probably hurt his pride, a girl who's madly in love with him sleeping with another man, not to mention that man being his old chum, Harry Montoya. I'd lay a dime on that information being enough to make him go off the track. He could try to play it down, but fact is, he wasn't on the level about his relationship to Vanasse. Vanasse might not have been the only woman in his life, or his bed, but she wasn't just some dame. He furnished her place, bought her extravagent gifts, took her out to the occasional meal to keep her happy… He had her on a string. Probably makes a bird feel pretty good, an exotic beauty like that carrying a torch - until she gets tired of being one kitten in a litter and decides to cozy up with the closest available cat. Fava had a woman daffy over him and she still slept with another man. A bird like that, I'd say that's motive."

Grissom's eyes were ranking over me. He shook his head. "We need evidence."

"I know that, but I want to bring him back in. He's got some questions to answer. Let Brass put the screws on him, see if he'll spill. If not, we can hit him with hand size."

"We have to be careful about tipping our mitt, Greg. Harry Montoya and Lauren Perske had hand spans that could fit as well."

"What about the others?" Catherine asked.

Grissom shook his head. "Johnny Mathers and Adele Williams' hand spans were too small, and Calvin Hellman's hand span was too large." I had figured it was. "Like Greg said, Hellman's hands were massive. The measurement came in at just under twenty-six centimeters." He looked at me. "That leaves us with three people to take a closer look at, Greg, all with motive." _And none who'd been on the level_, his look told me. "And we still can't discount the others, not without knowing what caused our vic's heart failure. We'll pull Fava back in later. Brass already called it a night. When he gets back on, he can pick up Fava for more questions. Maybe we'll have some more results by then."

Calling it a night was probably a good idea. I was anxious to sit down across from Fava, but if I wanted to make him sing, I'd need a clear head. At the moment, I was exhausted…and hungry. I couldn't remember eating anything since I'd come in. Grub sounded like a swell idea. "Breakfast?" I asked.

Catherine stood up. "Sorry, Greg, plans with Lindsay, remember? I'm already late."

Right. I'd forgotten. "Grissom? Sofia?"

Grissom shook his head. "Another time."

Sofia moved back around the desk. "Sorry, Greg, I have to head over to PD."

I nodded. It was dial for grub for me. "Ciao," I said as I gave a wave and strolled out of the office.

Sara and Nick were both in the locker room. Sara was putting on her jacket. Nick was tying up one of his shoes. "Hey Greggo," Nick greeted.

"You guys on your way out?"

"Yeah."

"Feel up to the hash house?"

"Franks?" Nick asked.

I nodded.

Sara looked at me and shook her head. She closed her locker. "Raincheck?"

"Plans?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

She grinned, and let out a short laugh, shaking her head. "Right." She slipped over to the entrance of the locker room and turned around. "Same plan as every day – home. Then it's breakfast, bath and bed. I'm not up to a greasy spoon today. I'll see you guys later."

I let my eyes follow her exit. We could do a little more upscale if ever the mood hit.

"Well, I'm in."

I looked at Nick. He swung his foot off the bench and stood up. "Anyone else coming?"

I shook my head. Opening my locker, I changed jackets and shoes. Then, I headed to Franks.

The place was a grease joint, but we'd been going there so long, we'd become sort of immune to its faults. At least I'd thought I'd become immune. I sat across from Nick, staring at the piece of meat on my fork. "Does this look appetizing to you?"

Nick was scarfing down his own food. He paused in his eating and looked up. "Looks the same as it always has, Greggo. You just know Sara's at home eating better and you're thinking maybe she had a point."

At that moment I was thinking that maybe he had one.

"Why do we come here?"

"Hey now, I asked that a couple of months ago and you said it was tradition."

I looked at him. I had said that. I'd felt it at the time too, Franks being where they all took me to celebrate move from the lab to the field, the place I'd been going with them ever since. I figured it was the lack of food all shift that left me wanting more than greasy bacon and runny eggs.

"It is tradition."

Nick looked at me and shook his head. He took a bit of his syrup soaked pancake and swallowed. "So, how's the case coming?"

"Moving along slowly. How's yours?"

He took another bite and swallowed. "Got a solve. Found the john our vic had tried rolling. He left everything behind. Wasn't hard to get a confession once we'd grilled him a little."

I nodded and took a bite of my eggs, looking down at the pool of yoke on my plate.

"Hey Greg, you ask Grissom about that nightclub?"

"No dice," I said.

He frowned, in a way that hinted at him thinking about something. I copped it to him wanting to believe in a bit of gossip about our boss. There was a part of me that didn't want to let it go, either, but I didn't figure Grissom for any kind of a liar. There may have been some big time cats sitting down at the table at _Ric's, _but Grissom wasn't one of them. Fava was. So was Montoya. So were a number of birds who may have flown the coop the night Camille Vanasse expired. Grissom hadn't sat down at that table, but the characters who had were probably far more interesting.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

I was back at the lab early. I figured Brass would be ready run Vito Fava in, but I wanted to check on some results first. The first place I hit was Grissom's office, thinking I should check in. He wasn't in. It was odd. Sure it was early, but Grissom practically lived at the lab. I figured he must be somewhere else in the lab.

I passed through the halls, keeping an eye out, but Grissom wasn't around. It was too early for the lab rats working grave to be in to give me my results, so I decided to burn some daylight taking a peek in Camille Vanasse's computer. I'd leave her email and browser history for Archie to get into, but perhaps there were some things I could check.

Logging the computer out of evidence, I set myself up in the conference room, sat back in my chair and began to snoop around.

I started with documents. There wasn't much to search through in there, so I closed it out. Catherine and I had browsed a bit through her music. I decided to see if she had anything in her pictures. I clicked on the icon and sure enough, there were several files.

The photos of Camille Vanasse showed a beautiful young woman, full of life. She looked happy and healthy, had none of the washed out signs of a girl on hop. Her eyes had life in them.

Many of the photos were of her by the sea. There were lots with a couple of older birds who looked quite a bit like her. I figured they had to be her folks. Her father had her skin tone, perhaps a little darker. He also shared her eyes. Her mother was fairer, but Vanasse's smile, the shape of her face and her nose were all her mother. Many of the photos were of Vanasse with friends at small cafés in narrow streets, cobblestone beneath their feet, on boats sailing along the coastline, at clubs standing around small tables with drinks before them, and many of the photos were of her with an instrument, her cello, sitting before a piano, leaning back on a lounge chair, playing the guitar by the sea. The girl loved the sea. I thought of the lure of Las Vegas, but that just didn't play. Why would the canary fly all the way to Las Vegas and give up a life by the sea for the desert? Other birds, maybe, but Vanasse seemed to be living the life she wanted. If she wanted to become a lounge singer in a city hopping with rich gamblers and casinos, where flash and glamour permeated the air, Monte Carlo was right there. It could claim far more romance and razzle-dazzle than Vegas could. She was studying in Nice; she was practically in Monaco already. Then I saw it, in another folder. I picked up my phone and dialed Brass. "Bring Fava in."

I played over the keys for another few minutes, checking a few things out. Closing the computer, I headed down the hall. My stride took me to Grissom's office. He was in, sitting behind his desk. "Yes, Greg?"

"Brass is bringing Fava to PD. I'm on my way down."

He nodded. "I just got a page from Henry. He has tox results. Stop there on your way by."

I jerked a nod and headed out.

Henry Andrews was the tech in the toxicology lab. He was kind of a nervous sort of guy, but a good egg. He was opening the door to a large refrigerator, his back to me, when I entered the lab. "Grissom said you have the toxicology report?"

Henry jumped. Apparently I'd given him a bit of a start. "Jeez, Greg, don't sneak up on me."

"Sorry." I looked at him waiting for the report. "The report?"

"Yeah, right, sorry." He handed the file to me.

"High levels of hop." It wasn't much of a surprise.

"Potentially lethal levels, depending on what her body could handle. I also tested the bindles Sara brought in - mostly brown heroin, but it was laced with coffee."

I frowned. "Coffee?"

Henry nodded. "It's common to lace brown powder heroin with coffee. The coffee dilutes the drug, making the powder look like a larger quantity, so it sells for more.

I nodded. I knew all that. I'd done some time in tox before. I looked at the levels. They were very high. The girl couldn't snort enough to have that much candy in her system, especially when she was snorting a powder with a lower concentration. I also doubted she'd been a hop head all that long, so her tolerance could have been lower. There was more than enough hop in her system to cause a skinny dame like that to expire, even for a habitual user. The evidence looked good. The girl OD'ed on the smack.

"What about the hop Catherine and I brought in?" I asked, thinking about the bag of brown powder Catherine had found. I expected the hop we found in the apartment to come from the same source as the hop from _Ric's_, but I wanted to confirm it.

"I haven't got to it yet."

"Thanks Henry."

I strolled to the locker room to grab my jacket. Sara was just arriving, still early, but later than I was accustomed to seeing her. She was usually in before I was. I gave her the up and down as she put her jacket in her locker. She looked good. She smiled. "Hey, Greg, you headed out?

I nodded.

"Got a scene?"

I shook my head. "I'm headed over to PD. I've got some questions for Vito Fava." I handed her a copy of Henry's report. "Camille Vanasse's tox report. Enough hop to pop the pump. Can you give this to Grissom?"

She looked at me, a slight smirk on her lips. "Sure."

I gave her a smile, grabbed my jacket from my locker, tucked the other copy of Henry's report under my arm, along with Vanasse's computer, and strolled out the building.

I was at PD for a half hour before Brass sauntered in with Vito Fava. I gave Fava the up and down. He was wearing tailored pinstripes again, with a red tie around his neck and had a red handkerchief in his left breast pocket. He had on that same gold Versace watch, which he used to check the time as soon as he strolled into the building. I followed as Brass led him to the interrogation room and took a seat next to Brass across from Fava. We had to wait for the mouthpiece he insisted on calling. When his lawyer was arrived, I jumped right in.

"You haven't been on the level about your relationship with Camille Vanasse."

Fava glanced at me, his steely grey eyes narrow. This was the first time I'd sat down across from him. Grissom had talked to him back at the scene; I'd only collected prints and a swab of his DNA. The cat was cool, real cool. He folded his hands in front of him. "I admitted to being involved with her."

"Yeah, and plenty of other women. You told the other CSIs that you slept with almost all the women who worked for you. Do you furnish their apartments too?"

"I'm a generous guy."

"Sure," Brass cut in, "you probably buy them all jewelry and dresses, and when that isn't enough, furniture for their living rooms."

"If that's what they want…"

"Luxury grand pianos?" I asked.

"Yeah, I bought her the piano. A stunning dame like that deserves a stunning instrument to sit before. Camille wasn't into the jewels."

"The cello?"

He shook his head. "No. Camille brought that over from France." He sat back and scoffed. "You brought me down here to discuss what gifts I gave her?"

"We didn't haul you in to bump gums. We wanted to give you another chance to be on the up and up."

"Yeah, I gave her gifts, just like I gave all my girls gifts."

I shook my head. "Vanasse wasn't just another one of your molls. You told our other CSIs that Vanasse was nobody special, but these gifts tell a different story. These gifts were personal."

Fava's mouthpiece piped in. "My client has admitted to both his relationship with the victim and the tokens of affection. He came here out of courtesy. He would very much like to help you in finding out how the young woman died, but if you continue to treat him in this manner, without offering a reason as to why, my client is leaving."

"We're coming to the why. It's interesting you should call the gifts 'tokens of affection,' considering Vanasse was in love with your client."

Fava looked at me. His eyes narrowed again. I returned his look. "She isn't like all your other molls, is she? She was dizzy for you. The other girls, they were interested in who you were, your bankroll, what gifts you could buy them. They all wanted to be on the arm of someone rich and powerful, someone with your name, a legend, someone who could give them a good party, but not Vanasse. She just wanted you. Begs the question of why she'd hop into bed with your best friend. You couldn't hold onto a dame dizzy for you?"

Fava's gaze was piercing. His grey eyes glinted like glass. This was a bird used to getting his own way. I doubt anyone had ever really challenged him. "What do you want?"

"I want to know why you didn't tell us you knew Camille Vanasse before she came over here."

He glared at me, but didn't say anything. I flipped open Vanasse's computer and went into her files. I turned the computer around. "Recognize this? That's you and Camille Vanasse, and that's not Lake Mead. Caption says Ile de Bendor. I looked the island up - just off the coast of Vanasse's home town. Nice place. Nothing like that around here."

I clicked onto another photo. "Another of the two of you on the Ile de Bendor, lounging on the beach."

"I took her back to her home for a vacation last year."

I clicked onto another image. "Oh, I know. I looked through the photos. We've got the two of you eating, hiking, getting all cozy on a towel, sailing, lounging by the pool, doing lots of things I'd expect of a couple on vacation in the French Riviera. But these aren't in that file. These are in an older file. I checked the time stamps. They were taken two years ago, just before Camille Vanasse moved to Las Vegas."

Brass cut in. "We know Camille Vanasse followed you here. I got the skinny from a colleague who spoke to Camille Vanasse's parents."

"Maybe something got lost in translation."

Brass scoffed. "I doubt that. My colleague is fluent in French. The parents told her that Camille was a talented musician, but had dropped out of her last year at the Conservatory of Nice and followed an older guy she'd met to Las Vegas. It was a shock to them. You could say it broke their hearts, their only daughter moving half way around the world with some guy she met a couple weeks before, giving up on her dreams. They told my colleague that Camille had been looking forward to her last year at the Conservatory."

I opened up another photo, one showing the two of them laughing on the beach. "Nice picture. Happy looking couple. She was in love with you."

He was silent. I opened up another photo of the two of them, Camille Vanasse gazing at Fava. "She followed you here. She met you over there, fell in love with you, and followed you back to Vegas. You didn't give her a job after she got here. You offered it to her over there and she followed you here."

Vito Fava sighed. I watched him as he stared at the photo. "Alright," he whispered. He continued to stare at the photo. "She was enchanting. She was working a summer gig as a part time singer, part time guide on the Ile de Bendor, where I was staying. I heard her sing one night. She had the kind of voice that haunts you. It stays with you forever. I pursued her. I saw her giving tours during the day and I bribed her to give me a private one. I paid the company a very nice sum to have her to myself, every day. Before I left, I asked her to come back with me. I offered her a job as a lounge singer. Yeah, she followed me here."

"But things didn't work out the way she'd hoped. She gave up almost everything for you – her music degree, her life by the sea, to come out to the desert, but you didn't give up anything for her. You put her up in a hole, rented her a place in a bad neighborhood, but fixed it up inside."

"No!" He leaned forward and stared across the table. "I didn't put her up anywhere. She chose to live there."

Brass decided to pipe in. "She stayed with you at first, didn't she? But you still went on with other girls and she couldn't take that. So what happened? She move out and into that place herself?"

Fava was silent. I watched as his lawyer whispered something to him. Fava still said nothing. I looked at him. "She had just dropped out of school. She probably didn't have a lot of funds kicking around. I'd lay a couple centuries that she even considered going back home, but she just couldn't leave you, could she? So she stayed in town, hoping you'd come around. Maybe the place was all she could afford, and you felt guilty, decided to fix it up for her, maybe even bought her that grand piano as a house warming gift. And that was probably the cincher, the thing that gave her hope and kept her holding on. She probably forgave you too, but you knew she couldn't come live with you, not with the lifestyle you wanted to continue to have, so you let her stay there, in that neighborhood, and she continued to wait for you to settle down." I paused and gave him the eye. "She wasn't on the hop before she came here, was she?"

Fava shook his head slowly. "No, she started up here."

"You told our other CSIs she was a girl you couldn't help but want to save." I pushed the computer towards him. "Doesn't look like she needed too much saving."

"Yeah, well, maybe that came later."

"When she began getting gowed up on the nose candy?"

He smiled and gave a small shrug. "Yeah, maybe then."

"When did she start using?"

"I guess about a year ago."

"You get her hooked?"

"No, that was someone else."

"You got a name for her peddler?"

He shook his head and let out a chuckle. "Nope. I figured the stuff probably came from her neighborhood."

I leaned back. Brass leaned forward. "The girl was desperate, wasn't she? She'd given up her whole life for you, and what did she get? Some fleabag apartment. An addiction to smack. She was a shadow of the woman who followed you over here, wasn't she? A wasted girl, two years older, washed-out looking. But, she was still in love with you. She was still daffy over you and she still slept with your best friend. Did you pass her off to him, or did she sleep with him to get to you?"

Fava leaned forward, into Brass's space. "I suggest you watch what you say."

"Did you kill her yourself, or did you get someone to do that for you, maybe someone who was hanging around your joint that night, but given time to get the clean sneak, just like everyone else who was there. Maybe you even got Montoya to do it for you. Maybe you figured a pal like that owed you a solid, a real solid, after sleeping with one of your girls."

Fava glared at Brass. His grey eyes were like ice. They could cut glass. I watched as slow, heavy breaths rose and fell in his chest. He placed both his hands flat on the table and leaned forward, licking his lips. I watched, waiting. His voice came out very low. "I told you to watch yourself."

Fava's lawyer gripped his arm. Fava looked at his lawyer, shrugged off the arm and leaned back. The mouthpiece whispered something to him. Then, the lawyer stood up. "You're done abusing my client. He's leaving."

Fava stood up. Brass gave him the eye. "Bit of a temper there, Vito? Family trait? Hey, maybe murdering your molls is a family trait too."

Fava turned and stared at him. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

Brass smirked. "Somebody helped Camille Vanasse OD and you're looking pretty good for it."

"Goodnight, Captain Brass." He walked out the door. I looked at Brass. "That bird is still hiding something. He hasn't been on the square."

"Yeah, well, you didn't expect him to start flapping his gums, did you?"

I didn't. I knew Fava would clam up whenever the discussion turned to interesting. Montoya may have thought that he was tough, but Fava was hard boiled and he had motive.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

I was back at the lab. After dropping off Camille Vanasse's laptop with Archie so that he could snoop around, I went looking for Grissom, Catherine and Sara. We were into the shift, so I didn't expect to see Warrick or Nick around, figuring they would be out on a case, but they were in the break room with Sara, looking over some papers and talking.

"What are you guys still doing here?" I asked.

Warrick looked up at me. "Waiting on Griss for assignments."

"He hasn't handed them out yet?"

Nick shook his head. "He and Catherine are in a meeting with the Undersheriff."

It didn't surprise me. The Undersheriff wanted a solve on this and quick. Given the legend surrounding the joint, one might call the case high profile. High profile meant the Sheriff or Undersheriff or Ecklie breathing down Grissom's neck.

"Bet that's some meeting," Warrick said, almost under his breath.

"Yeah, to be a fly on that wall."

I looked at Nick and Warrick, my head cocked to the side. I had missed something. I glanced around, my eyes narrow, and then turned my gaze to Sara and the papers in her hand. "What's that?"

Sara looked up at me with a slight smirk. "Something you might be interested in, Greg."

I moved over to the table they were seated at and took the space across from Sara. "Yeah?" I made a reach for the papers, but Sara drew them away.

"Hold on. Not so fast, Greggo. Give me a second." She tipped the papers up. Warrick pointed at something on them. "Look at that one."

My eyes narrowed. "What are those, anyways?"

Sara lifted an eyebrow and then smiled. "Mandy got some more hits on some of the prints you collected."

She was right; I was interested. I cocked my head to the side. "So, who's on the list?"

Warrick, Sara and Nick all stared back at me. My eyes narrowed again. One eyebrow lifted. "Grissom?"

Sara turned her head slightly to the side and looked across at me. Her eyes narrowed in a slight frown. "No…"

I stared at her, waiting. She stared back at me, frowning. I lifted an eyebrow.

"For heaven's sake, Sara," Nick cut in, "stop teasing the boy."

I reached for the papers again. Sara handed them to me. I flipped through the papers and eyed the list. Apart from the unknowns, the list was a regular who's who of Vegas society. There was a certain casino owner and a couple of his cronies, a certain shyster turned mayor and a few wise guys that might have once been his clients, a certain former sheriff, a couple of other casino owners, a few headliners, and…

"The Undersheriff?"

Sara nodded.

I checked for the location of the print. There were a few lifted, all around the poker table. That was also where Sheriff Montgomery's prints were found, along with one of the headliners. So they all played a few hands at _Ric's_. That was interesting enough. Even more interesting were the prints found in the lounge.

There were a few casino owners on the list of prints lifted from the joint and not all Las Vegas. Tahoe and Reno were represented as well. Apparently the allure of _Ric's _still spread across the state. Even more fascinating was that none of those prints were lifted from the poker table. Sam Braun, his fellow casino owners, and some of the more notorious characters' prints were all lifted from the bar and the tables in the lounge.

I placed the list down and drummed my fingers on the table. Grissom strolled into the room with Catherine. "Nick, you've got a 406A in Henderson."

"Breaking and entering? Come on, man, you're kidding, right?"

Grissom only handed him the slip. "Warrick, 427Z. Do you need a hand?"

Warrick shook his head. "I'll be alright, Griss."

Grissom nodded. "Alright. If you need some help, let me know. When Nicky finishes up, I can send him over. If you want someone sooner, I'll send someone else. One of us will have to double up."

Warrick took the slip, nodded and breezed from the room. Grissom looked at us and gestured for us to follow. "For now, the rest of us get to keep working on the Vanasse case."

I followed Grissom and the girls into the layout room. Sara handed Grissom the list of prints. Before he could rifle through the pages, I spoke. "Seems our Undersheriff likes to play a few hands at _Ric's_."

"I know," Grissom stated.

Of course he did. "You've already looked at the prints results?" I asked.

Grissom shook his head. "The Undersheriff just told me. He plays every Tuesday. He wants to get this solved so that he knows whether or not he'll be looking for a new club to play in."

"Who does he play with?"

Catherine shook her head. "He wouldn't say, not yet, anyways. Right now, it isn't our business. His poker game was played there on a night two nights before something happened to occur there. Right now, the events are unconnected."

"And if they become connected? If it is our business?"

"He assured me that he would ask the other players to come forward voluntarily, on their own terms. Anyone who doesn't come forward, McKean will let us know their names," Grissom stated.

"He doesn't want the press." That was a different side to the illustrious Undersheriff. Normally he thrived on media attention, inviting it when we wanted to keep the media at a firm distance.

Grissom nodded. "And neither do we."

I figured there was an angle to Grissom letting the Undersheriff off on not releasing names. Newshawks usually managed to gum up a good investigation. Grissom figured we'd get the names we needed without drawing the newshawks' attention. It was like not releasing details of a crime to the public in an effort to get information. That kind of thing was Ecklie's racket. Grissom liked to do things slowly and quietly; let the evidence do the singing, and not the people. If we didn't get the names we needed, then Grissom would put the squeeze on the Undersheriff. Until then, Grissom was letting it lie. If we went around chasing some big cheeses, looking for alibis, we were sure to attract extra attention, the kind of attention we didn't want any more than the birds involved. If they came to us, on the quiet, we might be able to escape all that. As it was, we were already going to have to chase some big names. I wondered if any coincided with the birds the Undersheriff played poker with. We had a former Sheriff on the list. I'd put a dime on him sitting down at a table with the Undersheriff, both being high up the ladder in terms of Vegas law enforcement. I'd lay another dime that it wasn't the former Sheriff's name the Undersheriff was withholding. I wondered who the Undersheriff was protecting. Likely some cat who didn't want his name to be plastered in the papers in connection with the joint. Some elected official? A congressman? An alderman?

I looked at Catherine. "Sam Braun hangs out there. Found his prints in the lounge."

She scoffed. "Doesn't surprise me. Sam always did like hitting the hot spots, even if the hot spots also happened to be back alley dives. As long as the company was right…"

"Maxwell Calvada, Bernard Leonarduzi, Salvatore Marciano..." I trailed off, naming a few of those more notorious characters, associates of Sam Brauns and birds whose families were affiliated with the outfit back when the outfit was running rackets in town.

Grissom frowned. He looked through the list of names printed. "We'll have to speak with everyone here. Brass and Sofia can check their alibis for Thursday night."

Wendy Simms, the bright, beautiful DNA tech peeked into the room. "Hey, guys, I have some DNA results for you."

I gave her the up and down. Even beneath the lab coat, she was a dish. Her DNA carried all the right codes. She stepped into the room and handed Grissom a file. "DNA from under your victim's fingernails. Came back to Harry Montoya."

We all looked at Wendy and then glanced around at each other. Maybe it was time to speak to Montoya again.

Grissom opened the file. "Thanks Wendy."

I watched her walk from the room before turning back to Grissom. His eyes were on the file. He looked up. "I'll call Brass and see if he can locate Montoya."

Grissom left the room. I gave the girls a rundown of my conversation with Fava. We compared our notes on the two characters who seemed to keep cropping up in the story. Grissom returned. "Brass was on his way here. He sent some officers to Montoya's place and put out an APB on Montoya's vehicle."

Brass arrived several minutes later. "There were some uniforms already in Montoya's neighborhood. No sign of him or his vehicle. I sent some others over to _The Pussycat Lounge_ where we picked him up last night. Seems he likes to frequent the place on a semi-regular basis. He also likes to frequent _The French Palace._"

We all looked at Catherine. Lab rumor had it, _The French Palace _was the joint where Catherine used to prance her pins around the pole. In this case, it was a rumor I also happened to know was true. I'd asked her about it several years ago and she'd confirmed it. I'd been to the joint a few times in my youth and had mentioned it to Catherine, thinking I might have seen her dance. Catherine had told me that if I had seen her dance, I would have remembered. I never doubted that. Ever since then I'd have to cop to wondering about how she'd looked strutting all her stuff. Even now, in her middle age years, she was a knockout. I had no doubt she could still knock the audience dead if she ever wanted to take another spin around the pole. I sure wouldn't stop her. In fact, I was pretty sure I'd be front row center, telling everyone around me that the package in her head was every bit as impressive as the package on display.

Catherine sighed. "I'll call over there; see if Montoya's hanging around." She left the room, flipping open her phone.

We waited. Grissom gave Brass the list of alibi's to run down. I watched as Brass looked over the list of prints. His eyebrow rose a couple of times. He opened his mouth to speak when his cell went off. He answered.

"Brass."

He jerked a few silent nods while the caller spoke. Then, he sighed. "No dice on _The Pussycat Lounge_. No sign of him being there at all tonight."

Catherine came back into the room. "He's not at _The French Palace._ Ted knows his face, but hasn't seen him around tonight."

"Think he'd spill on a regular customer?"

Catherine smirked. "Not usually, but to me, any day of the week."

Brass nodded. "I'll send a uniform over there anyways, just in case."

I thought about the bird, Montoya. I'd spoken to him a couple of times now, so I figured I had a pretty good lay on him. I turned to Brass. "_Fifty will get you a hundred_ he's at the Tangiers."_1_

Sara's eyes shot to me. She gave a little frown and then a little smirk. Grissom also gave me the eye, his eyebrows narrowed in the same, thoughtful way. Sara shook her head and let out a small laugh.

Brass looked at me. "The Tangiers? You figure he's there catching the moll's act or pleading his case?"

I shrugged. I figured Montoya would be doing more than catching her act. If she hadn't known about Montoya sleeping with Camille Vanasse before Vanasse had help drifting off into the _Big Sleep_, then she certainly would have found out during the interrogation._2_ I didn't figure Brass would put the screws on her without mentioning the little motive she had working against her. Montoya was sure to figure the same and catching her act at the Tangiers might have been his only opportunity to speak to her so far.

We decided to take a ride down the strip. Grissom sent Catherine out with Sofia to help run alibis. I figured that for a thinly veiled excuse. He really wanted to keep the Vegas heiress away from Vegas casino magnate and Tangiers owner, Sam Braun.

I headed over to the casino with Sara. Grissom drove with Brass. The idea was that Grissom and Brass would speak to Braun and see if the bird had an alibi for Thursday night, while Sara and I looked around for Montoya. If we spotted Montoya, we'd pull him aside for a few questions about his DNA ending up under our dead canary's fingernails and have him brought back to PD if we thought it was necessary. Given Montoya's penchant for non cooperation, I figured it would likely be necessary – unless he responded to Sara better than he had any of the guys working the case. Montoya figured he was a pretty slick customer, so there was a chance he'd try to turn on the charm with Sara and cooperate with her. Sara, on the other hand, might not be so cooperative herself. She had a jaw that could bite and Montoya was just the kind of wrong number Sara wouldn't hesitate to take a bite out of. Having him hauled into the police department was looking like a good idea. That was, if we spotted him. If Montoya was found and picked up somewhere else, Grissom and Brass would finish with Braun, while Sara and I would make our way over to PD to question Montoya.

I listened to the melodic chimes of the slots as we made our way through the casino. Brass and Grissom broke off from us. Sara and I continued on, heading for Lauren Perske's show.

Perske was on stage when we arrived. I raked my eyes over her as she danced stylishly along the stage, her gorgeous gams in full display. Perske wasn't one of the regular girls in the line, but a principle, and I could see why. She was graceful and alluring, a total knockout in her show girl get-up. My eyes stayed on her, appreciating the display before me.

"Lanky brunettes, you said?"

I felt Sara's breath in my ear as she spoke. I glanced over to see her smirk. She was eyeing me. I looked back up at the statuesque blonde on stage, and then back to Sara. "She's got nothing on you, doll," I crooned. I gave Sara a wink. It was almost the truth. Lauren Perske was glamorous and exotic, but put Sara in that get-up, with gams like hers and I was pretty sure I'd go for the lanky brunette. It didn't hurt that the lanky brunette was freaky intelligent and had that wicked jaw great for sparring. Maybe it was a personality thing. Perske had a pretty good jaw herself, but I'd known Sara for quite awhile and I appreciated that her virtues ran far deeper than that leggy body of hers. It certainly would be something to see her in an outfit like Perske's, something akin to seeing Catherine dance at _The French Palace_.

Sara's smirk grew. She shook her head and clapped her hand on my shoulder. "Come on, Dashiell, show's over." She nodded up at the stage as the curtain closed. "Let's hit back stage."

I followed Sara to the back, flashing my ID to the look-outs watching behind the curtain. I spotted Montoya hanging around by the dressing room door. We began to walk up to him when I saw him shake his head and force his way into the dressing room after Perske.

The exit of the other show girls from the room was sudden. People began to scatter. Sara looked at me, and then took off in a run. I followed, watching Sara as she slowed and drew her gun by the dressing room door. She peeked inside the open door and raised her weapon.

I came up behind her, my heart pounding. I peeked around her side. Harry Montoya's back was to us. His hands were raised by his shoulders. Lauren Perske had a gun pointed at Montoya. From what I could tell, the gun was a small derringer, small enough to fit inside a little clutch purse. I could catch a slight glimpse of the derringer, noticing the gold barrel pointed at Montoya and the ivory grip, studded with gems, peeking out from her palm. It may have looked like a decorative piece, some pretty moll accessory, but I figured it still threw lead alright.

"Put down your weapon," Sara stated, her voice level, but I could hear the slight quiver.

Lauren Perske shook her head. She kept the gun leveled at Montoya.

"Come on, baby," Montoya pleaded. The plea was phony. I could hear the smile in his voice. The bird was amused, like he figured she wouldn't fire the rod.

"You think you can play me for a fool, Harry? String me along while you chase skirt?" Perske shook her head. Her eyes were cold.

"It wasn't like that, baby. She didn't mean anything. I had tipped a few back…more than a few. It was that corn liquor. I was out on the roof, baby. I made a mistake."

"Drop your gun," Sara put in again.

"Come on Lauren," I said, moving next to Sara. My heart was still beating fast. "Drop the gun."

Grissom, Brass and Sam Braun approached the door behind us. I figured someone must have alerted Braun. He was the kind of bird who was always aware of what was going on in his joint.

Security came up behind us, guns drawn. I heard Sam Braun call them off, telling them he could handle his showgirl. I figured he didn't think she'd fire the gun in his casino, not surrounded by security and in front of a cop. He didn't think she'd have the nerve. Sam Braun asked her to put down the gun. Lauren Perske shook her head.

"Come on," I said.

"Step back, Greg." It was Grissom's voice, low and calm. "Let Brass handle it."

From the corner of my eye, I saw that Brass had his weapon drawn. He moved to my side. "Put down your weapon." His voice was calm, demonstrating what a cool bird he was. First case back from being shot and he betrayed nothing. His hand didn't even quiver.

Perske shook her head. "No. No, way. I'm not some weak sister. I won't be played for a fool." Her thumb cocked back the hammer.

"Baby, you're not. I know you're not. I love you. You don't want to do this."

My eyes were fixed to the scene before me. I hadn't moved. I could feel Grissom's eyes on me. I risked a glance and saw him staring at me, waiting for me to back out of the room. His eyes flickered over to Sara. She still had her gun drawn, her hands shaking slightly, locked in position by the situation before her. Grissom's eyes landed back on me. "Step back, Greg."

I began to step backwards, my eyes back on Lauren Perske. Her mouth turned up at one corner. "I told you to dust out. Should have listened to me, Harry."

"Don't do this," Montoya pleaded, his voice now sincere. He had finally come around to thinking that Lauren Perske might actually have the capability to squirt metal.

I stopped and stepped forward again. "Listen to him, Lauren," I put in. "Don't do this. A mug like that isn't worth being sent up the river for. Put down the gun, and you and the DA can probably work something out."

"Greg, step back," Grissom spoke, his voice firm.

I would have, any other situation, but I felt like I had a line on Lauren Perske as well and I figured that I was the best option we had for talk ing her down. Sam Braun might have been able to get somewhere, but he was just watching the scene before him, probably waiting for someone to blink. I shook my head in reponse to Grissom and kept my eyes on Lauren Perske. "Lauren we can work something out."

She shook her head again. The small dressing room was jammed with tension. Perske kept her gun steady on Montoya. Brass and Sara kept theirs steady on Perske. The room filled with an anxious silence.

"Please, baby," Montoya pleaded, "listen to him."

"He's right, Lauren." I stepped forward slightly. "You should listen to me. You don't want to be played the fool, so don't do anything foolish. He's a wrong number, not worth your time." I paused. I took a deep breath and another step forward, ignoring the feeling of Grissom's gaze burning into my back. "Let me give you the lay. You're a dancer. You start throwing lead and it's bye, bye, big stage, hello Big House. That's if you survive the bullet Captain Brass fires at you as soon as that roscoe in your hand goes off. Think about it."

Her hand wavered. Then it steadied again. She looked at me and then back at Montoya, her eyes still cold. "No, you ever heard about messing with the woman scorned. You shouldn't have done it, Harry."

"Baby, no! No, I know that." He put his hands out to his side. "Believe me, I know."

"You just don't learn, Harry."

Lauren Perske straightened her arm. I felt my stomach drop. "Lauren, no," I said, knowing I needed to convince her and quick.

"Come on Perske, put down your weapon," Brass stated. He took a step forward.

"You should listen to them, Lauren," Sam Braun put in. "They gave you the lay. Now let me give it to you straight. Your dancing career will be over. Put down your gun and I'll call your lawyer for you. I can't help you in this position."

I wondered if Sam Braun was thinking more about his casino than the situation his showgirl found herself in. She fires a gun in his casino and it's curtains for her.

"You shoot and everything is over for you," I said. "Everything. You will throw away the whole lot…your career…your freedom…your life…" I finished, trailing off on the last word.

She wavered again. Her shoulders fell with a sigh. The hammer clicked back into place. Brass moved forward, grabbed her wrist and seized her gun. He handed it to Sara before grabbing Perske's arms and putting on the bracelets. "Let's go."

I relaxed. I looked back to see Grissom right behind Sara. Her gun had lowered. She let out a long breath. Grissom's gaze flickered to her, his eyes displaying some concern. He glared at me.

Brass began to escort Lauren Perske from the dressing room. She looked back at me, her icy blue eyes staring into mine. Montoya let off a small snicker.

I frowned, thinking about how much I disliked the mug. "Something funny?"

He shook his head. "That broad's always been a little screwy, but I knew she wasn't going to shoot me."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that."

"Nah." He shook his head. "But thanks, pal." He looked at Perske and grinned. "She just gets a little excited, right baby. A couple nights in the clink should calm her down."

"Hold on, pal," Brass said. "You're coming too." He grabbed Montoya's arm and led them both out.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **_1_ _"Fifty will get you a hundred" _is part of a quote from the film, _The Thin Man_, a slight variation from the quote in the book, _"f__ifty bucks'll get you a hundred" _

_2: The Big Sleep _is a term for death, coined by Raymond Chandler.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Grissom stood next to me in the observation room. We were both staring forward, watching through the glass as Brass hauled Harry Montoya into the interrogation room. Brass gave Montoya a little shove towards his chair and then took a seat across from him.

"What'd you haul me in for?" Montoya asked. "Lauren's the one who pulled out the bean-shooter."

"Disturbing the peace," Brass quipped.

"Lauren pulled the gun on me. I didn't do nothing. "

"I've got a couple of witnesses who say you stormed into her dressing room. Maybe she felt like she had to draw her gun. "

Montoya sneered. "Right, Lauren needs protecting," he bit out, sarcasm all over his voice. He leaned forward. "Look flattie, she's a hard woman and she gets a little excited. She pulled the gun because she got a little hot, not to protect herself. "

"We'll see about that."

"I'm giving it to you straight. The broad's a little screwy. She's always going off on me, pulling stuff like this. It's a dangerous job being involved with a dame like her."

"You're breaking my heart," Brass deadpanned.

"You're gonna keep me here? "

Brass jerked a nod. "Yeah."

"Because Lauren pulled a rod on me? Come on."

"News flash, Harry, we didn't go to the casino to watch your moll point a rod at you. We were looking for you. We've got a few more questions that need answering."

"I want my lawyer."

"Fine, call him." Brass leaned back in his seat. "I've got all night."

I snuck a peek at Grissom. He was staring forward. He hadn't said anything yet, but I knew he was going to. I knew I'd gotten him a little steamed, not backing away from the scene at the Tangiers after he told me to.

"Greg, when I ask you to step back, you do it."

I didn't say anything. A guy doesn't ignore Grissom when he says something and I hadn't been ignoring him when he asked me to step back. I just chose not to listen to him. I'd figured I had a good reason. Everyone in the lab had done something similar, Grissom included. They'd all played cop before, going off half cocked. Nick was known to chase down a suspect on his own, even when he got after other people for doing it, Nick's words and actions not always running along the same line. Rumor had it, Sara charged in after a suspect before and got chewed out good by Nick and Brass. Catherine had saved Grissom from serial when he went too far out on his own. I figured Catherine or Warrick couldn't be completely innocent of any of that kind of action either. It happened. I knew a guy could get himself in a lot of trouble playing the hero, but people around here did it all the time when they felt they had to. Back at the casino, I had felt I had to stay put and ease Lauren Perske out of the fix she'd gotten herself into.

"You were unarmed."

He had me there. I stepped into a situation, unarmed, where a gun was drawn. I never carried. It was probably the reason he didn't get after Sara for standing in that doorway with her gun drawn. She hadn't been given much of a choice. I could have safely backed away, but I'd stayed, because I'd had a line on Lauren Perske. We'd sparred a few times. I'd figured she would listen to me, and eventually, the dame had.

"I talked her down," I said.

"You should have left that to Brass. He should have been the one talking her down."

"What if he couldn't?"

I didn't think I was entirely off base, but Grissom scoffed. "Brass is trained for these sorts of situations, Greg. He knows how to deal with them. That's part of his job. He's the cop; you're the criminalist."

Brass was also the guy who'd just been shot the last time he'd went up against someone with a gun. Not that anyone else would have been any more successful in that crazy situation, but it had to have had some sort of affect on him. Sure he was tough, but that experience could have frozen him a little. I'd stepped forward knowing I was our best option. I wasn't so sure Lauren Perske would have been as open to listening to Brass as she had been to me. "I had a line on her Grissom. I knew what she needed to hear."

"Greg, this isn't up for discussion. When I tell you to do something, you do it."

I stayed silent. I knew the discussion was over. Grissom wouldn't hold onto this. He knew it was a mistake none of the guys on the shift had been innocent of making. It was his job as the boss man to get his point across. I'd listened. Grissom had gotten his point through. It was time to move on and think about the case.

We stood silently, looking through the glass as Brass and Harry Montoya sat across from each other, both silently waiting for the entrance of Montoya's oddly quiet mouthpiece. Sara joined us a few minutes later. "Perske's weapon is now in evidence."

Grissom nodded.

Sara glanced at me. "Cartridges were full."

I looked back at Sara. "Well, we know she didn't know about Montoya and Camille Vanasse before Vanasse was killed."

Sara shook her head. "We don't know that. They could have been putting on a show. Montoya was hanging around outside the dressing room before we arrived. He only went in after we saw him. Maybe he spotted us and decided a nice commotion might help out his girlfriend, or spin us in some more circles."

"She pulled a gun on him."

"And caused a very big scene, I know, but I doubt Montoya's about to press any charges. "

I shrugged. Sara could have had a point. Perske and Montoya could have been playing an angle. The whole thing was like one big act, from the empty nightclub to the characters in it. It was hard to decipher the lines. If we wanted to start understanding this little play, we needed more to go on. Montoya's DNA under our dead canary's fingernails was a good start.

We all stood watching as Montoya's mouthpiece finally arrived. He was quiet as usual, greeting Montoya with a nod and sitting down next to him. Montoya looked at his lawyer, then across the table at Brass. "Well, lawyer's here. You gonna tell me what this is all about?"

"Camille Vanasse has your DNA under her fingernails. Now, do you want to tell me what that's all about?"

"What can I say? Sex got a little…rough." Montoya leaned forward and spoke in a voice almost too low to here. "She likes to scratch." He winked.

Brass sat up straight. "You've got an answer for everything, don't you Harry?"

Montoya shrugged. He had a smile plastered on his face. I wondered if Brass wanted to wipe off that smile just as much as I did.

"That might be a good thing for you when you have to explain yourself in court."

Montoya sat back and frowned. His narrow eyes watched Brass.

"Maybe you can give me a few more answers right now, but let me give you the lay first. The thing is, Harry, everything keeps coming back to you. See, we know Camille Vanasse had a little help OD'ing, by somebody who probably figured we wouldn't look too far into the death of a junkie. She's got some marks around her neck, so we think that maybe somebody held her down and forced something down her throat. Maybe she tried to fight back. Maybe she even scratched."

"You can't pin this on me!"

"You knew the girl, Harry. You slept with her. Your hands are just the right size to make the bruises we found on her neck. Now, we have your DNA underneath her fingernails."

"Look, I told you, the sex got a little rough."

"That may account for your DNA, but it doesn't explain the bruises."

Montoya leaned over and whispered something to his mouthpiece. He leaned forward. "The girl liked it rough. We were messing around. I was lit. That canary loved playing the tragic beauty. She wanted to be dominated. She asked me to choke her a little, so I did. She liked it, and just to be straight, so did I, but I stopped."

It threw me a little that he admitted to strangling Vanasse. From what I could tell, it threw Brass a little as well. "You choked her hard enough to give her those bruises."

Montoya shrugged. "The broad bruised easily."

Brass leaned forward. "You know, you sure remember a lot of what happened that night for someone who had as much to drink as you said you did."

"It comes back in bits and pieces." Montoya let his lips curl up into a closed-mouthed self-satisfied smile.

"So what happened? She get scared? Freak out on you? Threaten to run to Fava?"

Montoya shook his head. He was still smiling. "She went and snorted some nose candy. I had a cigarette."

Grissom turned to Sara. "Sara?"

"Right."

She slipped from the observation room and into the interrogation room. I watched through the glass as she planted a piece of paper on the table before Montoya.

Montoya picked it up and looked at it. "What's this?"

"It's a warrant. Please remove your shirt."

Montoya narrowed his eyes at Sara. He gave her the up and down, and then, smiled. "Anything you say, baby."

I frowned. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Grissom do the same. Sara just ignored the comment and lifted up her camera.

Montoya slowly unbuttoned his shirt. He made a show of taking it off for Sara, but she wasn't watching. When he was finished, she looked up from her camera. "Hold up your arms, please."

Sara snapped several photos of his chest, arms and back. Montoya watched her, winking at her when her camera snapped shots of the curly hair on his chest. Now and then, he'd make a few wisecracks, trying to work whatever charm he thought he had on Sara. Sara just ignored him and continued to snap photos. Then, she rejoined us. "A few scratches running down his left pec, and a couple on the left side of his back, almost on his side, about mid-level high. They could come from sex or from Vanasse scratching at him while he was over top her and choking her. There are some scratches running down his arm too that I doubt came from any consensual sexual encounter. Vanasse could have scratched at the arm when he was strangling her."

I didn't buy Montoya's claim that Vanasse wanted him to strangle her. I could tell Sara didn't buy it either. Grissom had on his poker face, so I couldn't guess at what he thought. With him, it could go either way. I knew that he knew a little about domination and submission. Word was he knew more than a little. I knew a little myself. The kind of thing Montoya was getting at wasn't out of the realm of possibility, but it just didn't fit with our canary. I couldn't see Camille Vanasse, in love with Vito Fava, running to Harry Montoya so that she could be dominated. Fava didn't seem like he was lacking in the dominant department. I also didn't see Montoya indulging her in any strangulation, not when her bruises would be very visible to his pal, Fava. I said as much to Grissom and Sara.

Sara nodded. Grissom sighed. "Right now, we can't prove otherwise."

_Can't prove otherwise._ In other words, we had to let him go. Montoya probably knew it, which was why he hadn't dropped the knowing smirk. He could wear it for the time being, but I was going to find something that would wipe it right off his mug.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

There was an itch bothering me, one I felt I just had to scratch. It was the kind of itch that sits on the spine, and no matter how hard a bird tries to reach it, he just can't. I was scratching around the itch, but I couldn't reach far enough to get near. Lauren Perske was in the interrogation room. Brass was in there too, putting the screws on her. I wanted to be in there with them, but Grissom wasn't about to let me anywhere near that room. Maybe he thought I was too close to her, or was getting too close because of what had happened at the Tangiers. Maybe he thought she'd gotten under my skin; I don't know. If that was it, I wanted to pretend like he was off the mark. It wasn't any warm, fuzzy feelings that had me wanting to be in that room with her. She was just another dame, gorgeous, glamorous, sure, but that glamour was just one ingredient in a Molotov cocktail. Beneath the glamour was a volatile mixture, waiting to be ignited. She was trouble. She carried danger around like a pro skirt carries around a tube of lipstick. I knew it. Catherine warned me about it. It wasn't any kind of interest or captivation that had me wanting to be in that room. I wanted to be there because I had a line on her. That's what I told myself. Of course, I couldn't really cop to being on the level. I knew I should stay away, but knowing it made me want to get closer. There was a certain lure to exchanging barbs with Lauren Perske. I'd call it curiosity, something I could claim came naturally. I was a scientist. We were all, by nature, curious.

I hadn't been in the interrogation room while Lauren Perske was being interviewed, but I was still at PD when she was escorted out. We crossed paths in the hall. She stopped when she saw me, tugged her elbow from Brass's hand and faced me. "Greg."

I gave her the up and down. She was still in her showgirl get-up, everything but the headpiece, which she'd taken off back in her change room before pulling a roscoe on Harry Montoya. The rest was all there, a dazzling emerald bra, bikini and fantail, nylon stockings running up her gorgeous gams, a silver choker around her stunning neck, and a brand new set of silver bracelets, courtesy of Brass. She held up the bracelets and donned a pleading look. I shrugged.

"Greg, they're going to book me in. Can't you do something?"

I shook my head. "Sorry, doll, we're not in the business of doing favors. You'll have to spend the night here. You'll be arraigned tomorrow."

Brass took her by the elbow again. She jerked her elbow from Brass's grip and faced me head on. "Please, Greg. Help a girl out. I didn't do anything."

I gave her the eye and shook my head again. "You aimed a loaded roscoe at an unarmed man, in a public place."

"He came in after me. You were there. You saw how it was."

I was there. I could picture him in that room, pleading his case, probably grasping her by the arms, trying to work his charm and not leaving her alone. I pictured her pulling the rod and I wondered why he didn't leave when she claimed she was just trying to get him to leave her alone. I figured there was a little more to it than Perske wanting to be left alone. "I saw you aiming that roscoe at him."

"I told him to dust out. He wouldn't leave me alone."

"Tell that to your mouthpiece. You'll get off light." She'd probably get a fine and a night in the cooler, but not much more. If her shyster was any good, she wouldn't even get the fine. Montoya wasn't pressing any charges.

"Greg…" She shivered. Standing there in almost nothing, I figured she had to be cold. She would get even colder in the holding cell. She wasn't the kind of dame that was about to trade glitzy green for any orange jumpsuit though, even if the jumpsuit would keep her warm. She let out another shiver. If I'd had a jacket, I would have draped it over her shoulders. She'd get a blanket in the cell.

"Sorry, kid, nothing I can do."

Brass took Lauren Perske by the elbow and led her away. I glanced down to the end of the hall. Grissom and Sara were standing there, glancing at me and talking. Grissom was frowning. I took a deep breath and walked to them. Brass came up behind us. He must've handed Perske off to another officer. "Sanders, why is the showgirl with the gun asking you for favors?"

I shrugged. I couldn't say what was going on in that head of hers. Maybe Lauren Perske thought she had some kind of line on me as well. Grissom raised and eyebrow.

"I never offered her any favors," I told him. I turned to Brass. "Did you hear me whispering any promises?"

Brass frowned. "No, but she still asked you." He turned to Grissom. "Listen Gil, Braun's here. I'm going to have that conversation with him that we never got to have at the Tangiers."

Grissom nodded. He gave me a long look before following Brass.

Sara watched them go and gave me a soft, pursed-lipped smile. "You aren't getting in over your head, are you?"

I shook my head. "No."

"You sure?"

I nodded. "Don't worry about me. She may be a knockout, but she's just another suspect to me." I let my lips turn up in a half smile. "You've got nothing to worry about."

Sara couldn't help but smile and shake her head as her eyes studied me. She straightened her face and gave mine one last look. She nodded. "Want to see what Sam Braun has to say?"

I grinned.

Sam Braun was in reception, talking on his phone. Grissom and Brass stood back, waiting for Braun to finish his call. Sara and I joined them. When Braun hung up, Grissom and Brass approached him. Sara and I hung back to watch and listen in.

"Mr. Braun, we need to ask you a couple questions."

Braun looked at Brass. "You saw what happened at my casino just as well as I did."

"It's not about Lauren Perske pulling a gun at the Tangiers."

"Funny, because that's what I came down here for, to see she was taken care of."

"Your showgirl is just fine."

"What's this about? You going to run me in too?"

Brass shook his head. "This is strictly informal. We found your prints at a nightclub where we're working a homicide. Ever been to _Ric's_?"

Sam Braun smiled a crooked smile. "You found my prints there, so you know I have. I've been there from time to time."

"Were you there on Thursday night?"

"Thursday?" Braun quirked his brow and pursed his lips as though he was thinking about it. "No. I was at a meeting with some partners. We were discussing plans on the new casino I'm building."

"The meeting last all night?"

Braun shook his head. "No, it ran late, but not all night."

"Where did you go after?"

Braun smiled again, his eyes lighting dangerously. "I went home."

"Anyone who can confirm that?" Brass asked.

Sam Braun looked at Grissom and smiled wide. "Sure, but you aren't going to like it."

"It's not Catherine," Grissom replied. "Catherine was at work."

"No, it's not Catherine." Sam Braun shook his head. "It was her mother. You want to know where I was after the meeting, call Lily."

I didn't think Grissom would care too much about Sam Braun being with Catherine's mother, apart from the fact it was like dragging Catherine into it. Catherine would care, though. I thought about how she'd react and was thankful I wouldn't be the bird carrying that message. Grissom was going to have to do it.

I watched him frown. Brass shook his head. "Look, we really aren't interested who you're whispering sweet nothings to in the middle of the night, apart from wanting to speak to them to confirm your alibi. We're not even interested in searching out the owners of the prints to add suspects to our list. We're only interested in running down names off the prints so that we can figure out who might have seen something that night."

Sam Braun smirked. "All the luck to you on that one, Captain."

Brass smirked in return. "Since you can't be helpful with that, maybe you could help us with something else. We also got hits on Max Calvada, Bernard Leonarduzi and Salvatore Marchiano, old pals of yours."

Braun shook his head. "We had mutual acquaintances. Max Calvada, Bernard Leonarduzi and Sal Marchiano were not really what I would call pals of mine."

"Oh, is that because none of those birds were allowed to set foot in a casino?"

Braun smiled. "That was the Gaming Commission's decision, not mine. I only ban those birds that try to cheat me."

Brass shrugged. "Guess you had to find another joint to meet those birds you only had a mutual acquaintance with, then. Somewhere a little more discreet." He paused, but Braun didn't say anything in return, so he continued, "Sal Marchiano was one of Nicky Fava's droppers, wasn't he?"

Sam Braun shrugged. I watched him as he smirked at Brass. "I don't know. I don't remember him being charged with anything."

No, I thought, nobody in connection with _Ric's _was ever charged with anything – not even a small traffic offense. Those birds knew how to fly under the radar and keep everything on the hush-hush.

"No," Brass said, "he beat the rap. Were Calvada, Leonarduzi or Marchiano at _Ric's _the night you were?"

Braun was cool. He could be grilled and not miss a beat. "I don't remember seeing them."

"Yeah," Brass deadpanned, "you wouldn't."

"Anything else you want to ask me?"

Brass looked at Grissom. Grissom looked back at us. I shook my head. Grissom turned back to Sam Braun. "No."

Sam Braun smiled at Grissom. "Give my regards to my daughter." He strolled away.

Sara and I approached Grissom and Brass. "Lily Flynn?" Sara asked.

Brass shook his head. He looked at Grissom. "Get Catherine to call her mother in and ask her about Thursday night."

Grissom shook his head. "Not a chance. Catherine has to keep her distance."

"Why not?" Brass asked. "It doesn't have to be official. Let Catherine ask her about it without telling her why. Lily will confirm or deny. Catherine will get it out of her. You can be there with her."

I thought it was a better idea than one of us asking. Catherine and her mother were going to butt heads about it anyways. Might as well have an audience who was in the need to know. It wasn't as though Sam Braun was a suspect.

Grissom looked at Sara and me. We both shrugged. He sighed. "Fine, I'll ask Catherine, but you and I are there when Catherine asks her."

"Sure. Call me over to the lab when Lily comes in. Until then, I'm going to help Sofia run those other alibis."

Grissom nodded. "There are a couple names I want to follow up on myself, so you can leave those to me." He turned to me. "Greg, why don't you give him a hand? Sara and I will head back to the lab.

I nodded, trying not to smile. Grissom may have thought it was small punishment sending me with Brass when Brass was a little irate with me, but I was more than alright with it. I would have to deal with Brass's biting wit, sure, but I also got to grill all those birds who liked to coop up at _Ric's_.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

The story was the same with every bird Brass and I interviewed. We'd only had time to interview a few before Brass got the call that Lily Flynn was on her way to the lab, but the response always ran along the same rope. Yeah, they'd all been to _Ric's_. No, they hadn't been there Thursday night. It turned out our shyster turned mayor had a weekly poker game there. I figured he would have some colorful stories about the joint, but he wasn't dishing. He probably would have thought any stories would violate attorney/client privilege. Some of the wiseguys who'd hung out there in years past were the same wiseguys he'd defended before he'd decided to throw his hat into the mayoral ring. He was the last person we interviewed before we got the call to head back to the lab.

I matched my stride to Brass's as we strolled through the lab's halls. Brass headed for Catherine's office. I peeked into the break room and saw Sara, so I decided to take a short break while Catherine, Grissom and Brass spoke to Lily Flynn.

Sara was eating a sandwich. She looked up at me as I entered and offered me half. I looked at the sandwich, but it had so many vegetables and sprouts sticking out, I decided I was better off declining. I much preferred the pastrami sandwich I had sitting in the fridge. I moved to the fridge, opened it up, and pulled out the pastrami. I sat down across from Sara, unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite.

The morning news was on the television. I caught a glance at a shot of Montoya being escorted from the Tangiers. The shot switched and I frowned. Apparently Montoya's mouthpiece got tired of playing the quiet cat and decided to live up to his title. With newshawks surrounding him and microphones in his face, he was definitely getting his voice heard. The mouthpiece was going off on the department for repeatedly having his client hauled in. He complained about his client being a victim. He hissed about harassment. He was drawing the kind of attention to the investigation that we'd wanted to avoid, and the press was swallowing every bit of swivel, eating it up and encouraging Montoya's mouthpiece to continue to blow smoke. It wasn't about to become any easier getting people to speak to us now. Every cat was going to play the clam.

Sara shook her head and let out a snort. Montoya's mouthpiece was spouting off on circumstantial evidence. I watched the television, taking small bites of my pastrami sandwich, trying to figure out what his angle was. I didn't figure him for trying to drum up publicity when his client wasn't being charged with anything. I figured it had to be a preemptive strike, a move to try to put the bracelets on the D.A. so that the D.A. would be hesitant to charge Montoya if and when more evidence came in. Or, maybe it was a move to keep all the other birds on the Q.T. when the subject of _Ric's _came up. I figured there had to be something more going on in the joint than a weekly poker game, something that the cats at _Ric's _didn't want coming out. Whatever the angle was, Montoya's mouthpiece seemed to be playing it to a 't'. The newshawks around him seemed to be lapping it all up.

The move by Montoya's mouthpiece had me too annoyed to enjoy the fresh pastrami before me. If Camille Vanasse had died by strangulation, we would have had enough to charge Montoya with murder. His semen inside her, despite the fact she was seeing someone else and he had his own moll to worry about. Hand prints the size of his hands on her neck. His DNA under her fingernails. The kicker was that Vanasse hadn't been strangled to death. She'd overdosed, with a little help, and we didn't have any evidence to connect Montoya, or any other bird to that. Montoya's mouthpiece was on the mark. At the moment, the evidence we had was circumstantial, explained away by a rough, but consensual sexual encounter.

Sara took another bite of her sandwich, chewed and swallowed. Her gaze turned from the television to a piece of paper on the table beside the container for her sandwich. She pushed the piece of paper across to me. "Wendy got results off Camille Vanasse's sheets - two contributors, one male, one female - Fava and Vanasse."

I looked at the sheet. Several stains, various encounters, but all the same two contributors. So Montoya hadn't charmed his way into Vanasse's bed. She'd saved the home for Fava. Vanasse had slept with Montoya somewhere else. It had likely been a one night only kind of thing.

Sara glanced back up at the television and looked back to me. "I wonder what Montoya's lawyer will have to say on the subject of harassment when we search his client's apartment. Griss and I got a warrant for Montoya's place. We're going to head over there once Grissom is finished with Catherine and her mother."

I nodded. Sara took a small bite of her sandwich, chewed and swallowed. "So how did it go with Brass?"

"Same old story. People will cop to visiting _Ric's_, but nobody will cop to being there the night Camille Vanasse was killed."

Sara nodded. "Figures."

I flicked off the television and took another bite of my pastrami sandwich. It was starting to taste better now that I couldn't hear Montoya's mouthpiece haranguing about harassment. I let out an appreciative sigh. Sara wrinkled her nose. I almost laughed, but was stopped by Grissom's appearance in the room. Somehow I didn't feel like laughing with Grissom around.

He gave me a look and then turned to Sara. "Are you ready to go, Sara?"

I eyed Sara as she popped the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth, stood up and nodded. She smiled. "Yeah." Sara moved around the table and glanced back at me. "See you later, Greg."

I jerked a nod and turned back to the pastrami. I was just finishing up the first half when Catherine and her mother came into the break room. Catherine wasn't looking too impressed.

Lily Flynn followed her fiery daughter around the break room table. "You knew I was seeing him, Catherine."

I watched Catherine shake her head at her mother. "Yeah, I did."

"I don't understand why you're so upset."

Catherine lifted both her hands in the air and then, dropped them to her side. She shook her head again. "I'm not upset. I just…" she paused and gave me a long look before turning back to her mother. "I just hate how his name always seems to pop up and I have to stay away from a part of a case I'm investigating. Then, to find out his alibi is my mother."

"What do you want me to do? Sam invited me over Thursday night. We…"

"Stop. Just, stop. I really don't want to hear it."

"Well, I don't know why not, Catherine. If you're mad because you have to stay away from cases involving Sam, then you should be happy he has an alibi for Thursday night. It gives you full access to this case you've been going on about."

"Happy? Mom, the fact that you're Sam's alibi pisses me off just about as much as being pulled from a case where he pops up."

"He's your father Catherine, and you knew I've been seeing him. The two of you have been getting along much better lately."

Catherine let out a sigh. "Look, I have a few things I have to finish up. Why don't you wait here and I'll give you a ride home."

Lily Flynn nodded. She took a seat across from me. Catherine glanced quickly at me and headed out of the break room. I gave Lily Flynn the up and down. She was still an attractive woman, a broad who'd been around during the time Vegas was really kicking. Back in her showgirl days, when she was always on the arm of Sam Braun, she would have often found herself in the company of some of Vegas's most notorious characters. Being Braun's best girl back in the day, and on the same show line as Lois O'Neill, she had to have exchanged pleasantries with more than a few of those characters. Here was a woman I was sure could dish the dirt on _Ric's_. "Lily," I said.

"Hello, Greg."

I offered her the second half of my pastrami sandwich. She waved her hand and shook her head. "No, thank you. I don't want to take your food."

I took a knife and sliced the sandwich again. I offered her half. This time she took it and bit into it. She gave me the eye. "I hear you are hot on a case involving _Ric's._"

I nodded. "Ever been?"

Lily Flynn smiled, and I could tell she loved any chance to relive the past. "Sure, back in the day, when the joint used to hop, I might have popped in a couple of times."

"What was it like?"

She took a bite of the sandwich and let herself chew it slowly. There was something charming in the way the former showgirl ate a sandwich. "It was a back alley gin joint, but it swung. Back then, Sam was almost larger than life. He liked attention, so he would rather party on the strip, under the neon lights where cameras flashed and money moved, rather than hit up some discreet back alley club, but every once in awhile, he would get the itch to go to _Ric's_." She threw her head back and laughed. "Even if it was a back alley gin joint, you could never be disappointed by the crowd that used to gather there. Everybody who was anybody could turn up, film stars, crooners, goodfellas, men who'd get run out of town if they were ever caught in city limits."

"Ever been right before a raid?"

She shook her head. "No. I guess we were never there enough. As I said, Sam liked the strip and the casino's, especially his. _Ric's _was almost too discreet for him."

I cocked my head to the side. Sam may not have been a mob man, but he'd spent plenty of time with birds who were. Back in the day, he would party with the worst of them. "Maybe he could have used a little more discretion."

Lily Flynn let out a laugh that reminded me of her daughter. She shook her head. "No. You know why Sam kept his casinos when everybody around him was losing theirs?"

"He didn't get caught on the skim?"

She shook her head. "He didn't sneak around. He was out in the open."

I cocked my head to the side and considered her words. Maybe Sam Braun had done a little skimming for the boys back in the Midwest, but he'd never been caught. He hadn't ever been seriously investigated. Maybe it was because he didn't look like a bird who was trying to hide something. Maybe it was because he knew the best hiding place was in plain sight. Maybe it was because he was smart enough not to get caught on tape, or hanging out in some seedy joint somewhere. I looked across at Lily Flynn and let my lips curl up into a small smile. "So, even if you hadn't been around during one of _Ric's _raids, do you know how the birds managed to take a Mickey Finn before the cops got there?"

"I'd always assumed they had a scanner, or someone on the outside giving them the tip-off."

I nodded. It was the same theory everyone else had. The crowd got the tip and lammed off. It didn't explain how nobody ever saw the crowds leaving, but in this town, that didn't mean much, especially back then. The desert had plenty of holes filled with people who hadn't learned that it was better to keep one's mouth firmly shut. Those who'd managed to hang around, did so by playing the clam.

I watched Lily Flynn take another bite of her sandwich. I could tell she was waiting on another question about the past, a chance to relive her colorful youth and talk about Vegas in its glory years, when the mob men ran the city and she had a ticket to every show in town. I placed my elbows on the table and leaned forward. "So, Lily, just who did you bump elbows with at _Ric's_?"

Lily Flynn leaned forward, her eyes alight. "When you hear..."

"Mom, are you ready to go?"

We both looked up at Catherine. Lily stood and looked down at me. "That will have to be a story for another time."

"I look forward to it." I was a little disappointed that Lily was leaving before getting the chance to dish, but I did look forward to hearing it another time. I figured I could console myself with reading about _Ric's _again in Lois O'Neill's memoir when I got home. She had dished on a few of the characters she and Tony Constantine saw at the joint.

Lily Flynn smiled. "Thank you for the sandwich, Greg."

I gave her a small nod. "It was my pleasure."

"See you later, Greg."

I nodded at Catherine. We'd be back to business at the start of shift and Catherine would be back to form. I stood up and threw out the wrapper for my pastrami sandwich, wondering what I should do. Grissom and Sara were still out, processing Montoya's house. I didn't really want to go home while they were still out looking for clues, but I didn't figure Grissom was really ready for me to join him. I knew he'd want me to head home after the stunt I'd pulled earlier. Catherine had been alright calling it a day. I figured I could spend a couple more hours with Brass, interviewing cat's who's paw prints had been lifted at _Ric's_ before calling it a day myself.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: **Last update for at least a couple weeks.

**Chapter 16**

I wasn't sure where I'd be in Grissom's books when shift started up again, so when he called me in early and asked me if I wanted to accompany him to speak to Sheriff Montgomery, I was a bit surprised. Knowing I'd be talking to the man who was the law back in Vegas's premier golden age, I was more than ready to get back to work. I didn't need to be home resting, not when the action was down on the strip and not when Grissom was already back at work.

When I arrived at the lab, Catherine and Sara were already back at work as well. Sara looked a little tired. She and Grissom couldn't have had too much time off. Those two didn't seem to quit, pulling that long shift, searching Montoya's apartment, and then coming back in early. Sara was staying at the lab, waiting for results off of some of the things she and Grissom had pulled from Montoya's apartment. Catherine was going to stick around and give Sara a hand going over the evidence. I left with Grissom.

There were times when I'd figured Grissom was about as mysterious a bird as they come. That night wasn't any exception. He seemed to know exactly where Sheriff Montgomery was going to be without getting the lay from Brass or anyone else. That night it was at the Golden Nugget. Sheriff Montgomery was there having a late dinner with Pauly DaGloria, an old time Vegas crooner. Grissom headed straight for Sheriff Montgomery's table in the back and stood over the Sheriff.

Sheriff Montgomery looked up from his steak and baked potato. "Grissom." He smiled and let out a low chuckle. "Well, I'll be. What brings you here? You come for the steak or are you working a case?"

Grissom pulled up a chair and sat down. He nodded for me to do the same. "I've been cutting back on the red meat, Sheriff."

Sheriff Montgomery gave a low chuckle. "So, it's not for the steak, then."

Grissom just smirked. Sheriff Montgomery sawed away at a chunk of his own steak, pink juices running out over the plate and getting absorbed by the potato. "You're working a case?"

"As a matter of fact, I am. A homicide at an old nightclub – _Ric's"_

Sheriff Montgomery smiled. He took a bite of the rare and juicy steak and chewed slowly. Swallowing, he glanced at Grissom. "Yeah, I heard about that. It's been all over the news." He paused and used his fork to pry loose a piece of steak from his teeth. "I also spoke to Jeff McKeen. He told me you might be stopping by. Said you were looking for the names of the people he was playing poker with last Tuesday – eliminating prints. I was going to stop by and see you."

Grissom nodded. "We're trying to eliminate suspects and see if we're left with anyone who might have been there on Thursday when the murder occurred. You were at the table with the Undersheriff last Tuesday?"

The former Sheriff nodded. "Sure. They needed a filler."

"That how your prints got there?" I asked, jumping in.

Sheriff Montgomery gave me a long look. "Yeah." He turned to Grissom. "Who's the kid?"

I extended my hand. "Greg Sanders."

I watched as Sheriff Montgomery looked at my hand and nodded. I glanced down at my extended hand and pulled my palm back. I could feel Sheriff Montgomery watching me. I glanced back up at him.

"Greg Sanders, you ever heard of Paul DaGloria?"

I looked at the older man eating with the former Sheriff and nodded. "Sure," I said and turned to him. "I heard you used to make the Strip swing. Opened for some of the Rat Pack when they were in town and held your own in your own show when they weren't."

Paul DaGloria gave me the up and down and glanced back at Sheriff Montgomery. "Smart kid."

"It's an honor to meet you," I said, extending my hand again. This time the offered hand was taken. I gave a firm shake and then turned my attention back to Grissom and the former Sheriff. Grissom leaned forward. "You were filling a seat?"

Sheriff Montgomery nodded. He took another bite of steak and chewed it slowly. His fork was placed neatly beside his plate. Then, he washed down the steak with a little white wine. "Sure. A couple of the regulars couldn't make it. They wanted to fill out the table. I sat in."

"Do you do that often?" I asked.

Sheriff Montgomery looked at me, his eyebrows lifting high up into his forehead. He looked almost amused. He took a bite of his now pink potato. "Not often. Every once in a while." He turned his gaze back to Grissom. "You know where I play regularly."

"Who invited you to fill in?"

The former Sheriff gave Grissom the eyeball. He took a sip of wine and chewed on another bite of steak. "Grissom, you know as well as I do, some people don't want their private lives being aired out in public, and since they aren't breaking the law, they are entitled to that privacy."

"We aren't interested in those people not breaking the law. We only want to find out who they are so that we can separate them from the people who are breaking the law, and to find out if they saw something or know something."

Sheriff Montgomery wiped his lips. "People don't like having their names mentioned in connection to _Ric's_, even if the joint isn't what it used to be."

"We're only trying to eliminate prints, Sheriff. We're not going to advertise _Ric's _customers to the State of Nevada."

I watched the exchange. The former Sheriff seemed to be weighing Grissom's words as he chewed on another bite of steak. I glanced over at the old crooner, Pauly DaGloria and noticed that he was much further along in the meal. He glanced at me and I could tell his attention was as fixed on the conversation as mine was. Sheriff Montgomery placed down his fork. "A little discretion would surely be appreciated."

Grissom nodded. "Only those with something to hide will have anything to worry about. Now, we would appreciate your help in the manner."

I glanced between Grissom and Sheriff Montgomery, getting a first hand look at how Grissom dealt with the big boys. Whoever it was that said Grissom couldn't play politics – Catherine, probably – hadn't witnessed Grissom playing his hand at this table. Sheriff Montgomery took another bite of potato and another bite of steak. He and Grissom were watching each other. The former Sheriff lifted his napkin to his mouth and wiped it over his lips. He set the napkin back down in his lap. "Alderman Connolly invited me. The Alderman, Undersheriff McKeen, Commissioner Jack Archer and that young, hotshot D.A., Peters?..."

"Petrie," I put in.

The former Sheriff nodded. "Right, Petrie – lousy poker player. They were all there."

"Are they all regulars?"

Sheriff Montgomery shrugged. "Not sure. The Alderman is. So is McKeen, and maybe Archer. I doubt that kid, Petrie, or whatever you said his name was, I doubt he is. I'm pretty sure he was just tagging along." He cut off another chunk of steak and bit into it.

Grissom nodded. I shook my head at the names listed before me. "They all play at _Ric's_?"

The former Sheriff eyed me. He finished swallowing. "Yeah, they play there." He played it off like it wasn't a big deal. As if he knew what I was thinking, he started up again. "This isn't old Vegas anymore, kid. _Ric's _isn't a mob meet joint any longer. It's changed. The mob is out. Nobody in the joint has ever been charged with anything; nobody ever had been either. The joint is legit. It has a business license, serves a few drinks and is a discreet place for old timers to sit down at a table. Who cares if they sit down there?"

"But you've investigated the place plenty of times in the past."

Sheriff Montgomery smiled. He scooped up the last of his potato and shoved it into his mouth. He didn't wait to swallow before speaking again. "Right, in the past." He sipped on the white wine in the glass before him. "We raided the place several times and always came up empty. We searched the place up and down. The joint was always clean."

"Do you know how everyone got out?"

Sheriff Montgomery chuckled. "No. We always figured they had a scanner or got a tip-off, had someone on the outside. The Feds raided the place several times as well. Came up just as empty as we did. We couldn't bug the joint without probable cause, but the Feds tried. Those government men put down the bugs and the fellas at _Ric's_ came back and swept for them. They had some kind of exterminator too, the very best. The Feds couldn't get a bug in that wasn't discovered and eliminated."

"And neither of you could ever get anything on the joint?"

"_Ric's_ was a back alley joint, kid. Hard to watch the place without being made. The characters running the joint were wise enough not to put in a phone line, so the joint couldn't be tapped. They eliminated every bug the Feds put in. They had a bruno at the door and a button man watching everyone who came near the joint, making it hard to get a man in. A sudden raid was the best bet, but even then, we never got anything."

"You never knew how they lammed off?

Sheriff Montgomery laughed. He filled his glass of wine from the bottle on the table, giving Pauly DaGloria a refill as well. Sipping his wine and chewing on his steak, he looked at DaGloria. "Listen to this kid." He turned back to me. "No, we never had that figured. We figured they had a FBI descrambler and a police scanner, but we never turned one up. If they had either of those, they did a good job cheesing it. Could have been a tip-off, giving them time to get the clean sneak before we got there."

"Think they had one of your guys on the payroll?" I asked. It was a common thing back then, cops looking for a little tip to turn the other way. Back then, some of the cops were known to be as crooked as the wiseguys running the strip. Those who weren't looking for tips and who questioned some of the wiseguys, were known to be wrong numbers in their own right. They dug and filled as many holes in the desert as the wiseguys did.

Sheriff Montgomery's head was cocked to the side. He was studying me. A thin smile appeared on his lips. "Are you really looking at the old, dirty cop angle, kid?" I didn't say anything. Sheriff Montgomery's eyes narrowed. "Let me tell you something. Back in those days, Vegas was a different place. How many crimes do you investigate in a week?"

I shrugged.

"How many? Lots right? Vegas is filled with crime. It's on the news all the time – a modern day Gomorrah, the crime ridden streets of the town without morals."

It varied week to week, but we did pull a lot of crime scenes, even on a light week.

Montgomery looked at me. He stabbed at the last piece of steak and ate it slowly. Then, he put down his fork and stared forward. "Back then, there was hardly any crime. Sure, the mob may have had a hand in running the city, but they kept the city clean. Back in the Midwest, those boys had enough to deal with. They didn't want the attention out in Vegas. They knew they had a good thing going, so why ruin it? Crime attracts attention. They knew if they pulled some of the stuff they pulled back home, they'd always have the cops and the Feds hanging around. They didn't want that, so they kept the place clean. We had one of the lowest crime rates in the country. Some dumb mug tried something and he had the mob to deal with. Some other dumb mug tried something big and stupid and public and he had us to deal with. We didn't mess around when it came to those mugs, and the mob did a good job not messing around with us. Everybody had their place. People didn't commit too many visible crimes, and if they were dumb enough to do so, justice was swift. Didn't matter who was wielding Justice's sword, either, kid, because it usually managed to work out in the end."

Right, I thought. People disappeared. You didn't find the bodies justice left in it's wake. If the mob or the cops left a body, it was to make a point. You wanted to find anybody else who might have gone missing, your best bet was to take a hike out in the desert. Only thing was, those mugs filling holes in the desert weren't the kind of mugs too many people would miss and if somebody did happen to miss them, he'd have to be a pretty dense mug to even think about making that hike out into the desert.

"It was a different city, a clean city, a city low in crime. I'll tell you something, we didn't want the attention either. Sure they probably ran the skim through _Ric's,_ but we didn't know about the skim back then. This wasn't Al Capone getting the squeeze for tax evasion. That was prohibition. This was Vegas in the early days and all the rackets the mob was tied into here were legal, so people never gave it much of a thought about what they might not be declaring at first. Yeah, they met in the joint, carriers probably picking up briefcases of loot, but that was all they were – made men, sure, but none of the big names that attracted attention. If any of the big bosses ever flew into town, we put them right back on the plane and sent them back home. We used to run quite a few family bosses out of town in those days. They learned to leave Vegas to the other cats, associates who didn't have rap sheets longer than the strip. Some of the smarter ones who still couldn't seem to stay away flew into LA and drove over so they wouldn't be discovered. We still found them and sent them packing. We kept the big bosses out of town, but let some of their associates in. They kept the city clean and we would leave them alone, for the most part."

I listened to the former Sheriff talking like the mob being in town had a symbiotic relationship with the men sworn to protect it– the two feeding off each other, a clean city with low crime rates in exchange for letting the syndicate set up shop and run things in town through people like Nicky Fava and Sam Braun. It was the stuff of fiction, but every bit of it jived with what I'd heard about Vegas in the past. "You still investigated them?"

"We had to. Our job was to check in on those characters from time to time and make sure we didn't see anything illegal going on, gambling in unlicensed establishments and stuff like that. Most of it, we left to the Feds. Back then, we didn't know about the skim. For the most part, the Feds just wanted to keep a line on those characters, bust them for something because they'd beaten the rap for something else. The Feds were only interested in _Ric's _because of everybody else who used to go there. There were some powerful people hitting the place that Hoover would have loved to get a line on. The Feds who actually cared about investigating organized crime had a hard time getting anything on the mob men in Vegas. Those goodfellas kept the place too clean. It was like that right up until Spilatro came to town and decided to pad his pockets with street crime. There was one wiseguy the boys running the city should have sent packing. Up until then, the city was clean. You want to talk the dirty cop angle? My boys kept the city clean. We didn't need payouts to do it."

I didn't say anything. The former Sheriff had gone on the defense. He could justify how he ran the city all night long, talk about how it was a different time back then. I glanced over at Grissom. He wasn't saying anything either. He looked at the former Sheriff. "You weren't there on Thursday?"

Sheriff Montgomery stood up, tossing his napkin onto his plate. "You know where I am on Thursdays, Grissom. That hasn't changed just because you stopped showing up."

Grissom nodded.

The former Sheriff looked at him for a long, hard moment. His narrowed eyes glinted. Then, he slowly smiled. "Grissom, it's almost always good to see you. Don't be a stranger. Your seat at the table is always open."

Grissom jerked another nod. He stood up as well. "Sheriff."

I stood and watched as Sheriff Montgomery and Paul DaGloria strolled out of the dining room. I glanced back down at the table. The Sheriff had left all of his vegetables.

I looked back up at Grissom. "Well, we have some names to match some of the prints."

"Yeah, for Tuesday night. That probably won't get us any closer to finding out who was there on Thursday."

I shook my head. Whoever was there had probably dusted out when the 911 call had been made. They would have had ample time. Back in the old days, during the raids, they'd probably been given the tip-off, maybe in exchange for keeping the city so clean, or for paying off some of the cops and government men to turn the other way. So far, witnesses were as reliable as ever. I followed Grissom from the Golden Nugget hoping Sara and Catherine had better luck with the evidence Sara and Grissom had pulled from Montoya's apartment.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

I stepped out into the warmth of the night, standing under the neon of the Golden Nugget, glitz in the glow of Fremont Street. The day's hot temperatures had yet to disappear, leaving the night air stale with a dry heat. A circus of light above me, I cast my glance around the streets. The warm desert night air had done nothing to stop the night-goers wandering about joint to joint. The streets were teaming with people who'd chosen to forgo the resorts of the Strip for casinos downtown. The lights of the pedestrian walk nearby formed a sort of halo over the people milling below, a strange image to behold in a city like Vegas.

Grissom had exited the Golden Nugget behind me. His eyes also cast a glance around. His lips formed a small frown before he moved to the Denali and I followed behind. As he navigated the downtown grid, I stared out of the passenger seat window at the brilliant neon of the downtown casinos until all that light was only a luster behind us.

The streets turned darker. As we drove along, I chewed on Sheriff Montgomery's words. There was something darkly sincere in the way he spoke about the balance of power in old Vegas, as though he was actually convinced all the secrets and everything the law and the mob had buried back in the day were necessary measures to maintaining balance and peace in the city, as though the mob operating in town was a small price to pay for the semblance of law and order. Mob men had only been knocking off other mob men anyways, dirty mugs who'd gotten out of line. What did the Sheriff care if a bunch of made men knocked off a couple of petty mugs who'd upset the balance. The cops were doing it as well. The bodies would never be found. If a body was left to be found, it was to make a point, the kind of point that would stick in the brain of any dumb mug.

It was Vegas. The trade-off was easy to men like the Sheriff back in those days. Like the Sheriff had said, it was a different time, and who was going to complain? Investigations could get messy. It was easier and safer to let things be.

As I let my thoughts roll in tandem with the wheels on the Denali, I wondered if that was why Laney Hathaway's murder back in '64 had never been solved. Sheriff Montgomery was out of office by then, but maybe the law at the time had the same thoughts about maintaining balance. Did they simply just close the book on the investigation? Had they something to do with the murder? Laney Hathaway's body had been found in a dark alley near Fremont Street and in those days, bodies weren't left lying around unless it was to make a point. What point was being make by the showgirl's murder, and who was setting on making that point?

I thought about what I'd read of the old case. The love triangle. The young G-man in love with a mobster's girl and telling not one soul except for a buddy back at the bureau. The fight between Hathaway and Nicky Fava's button man. The beat cop finding the twisted dancer's body in the alley, throat slit. Did Nicky Fava discover Casey Shaw's love for his girl and have the girl killed? Did the shouting match between Laney Hathaway and Fava's button man cause the button man to silence her forever? Did some government man or some zealous cop knock off the showgirl to get Shaw to fall back into line? When that didn't work, did they feed Fava Shaw's name as an inside man to clean up loose ends? Casey Shaw disappeared just when he was about to go off the track. His body had never been found, where Laney Hathaway's had. Shaw had simply vanished and it wasn't hard to imagine he'd vanished Vegas style, six feet under or trying on a new pair of cement shoes. Was that some button man's doing, or was it a government man? It was Vegas and all the scenarios could play. I wondered if the former Sheriff knew anything about that.

I gave Grissom the up and down from the corner of my eye. If he were privy to my thoughts, he'd probably tell me to focus on this case. The only connections to that case and the one we were working on were _Ric's _and the surname, Fava. We had the murder of another young woman to solve, a strikingly beautiful dead canary.

Grissom pulled into the lab and put the Denali into park. He hadn't said anything on the ride back and I wondered if that was from his own common silence or the quietness that had settled over me during the ride. I wondered why Grissom had even brought me along. I was grateful for the chance to talk to a bird like Sheriff Montgomery, someone who'd been in the thick of things back in the day, but really, it was just a follow up, one I was sure Grissom would have normally rather made alone. Did he want me to see that the normal rules didn't apply when dealing with birds like Fava and the Sheriff, people who'd known Vegas in a different time? Maybe Grissom was just throwing me something after disciplining me earlier, or feeding me something because of all the questions I'd been asking him earlier, questions about sitting down at a table. Every so often, Grissom was known to drop a detail or two about his life, but those details came sparingly and almost never to me.

"What do you think about the Sheriff claiming not to know about the skim?" I asked him as I got out of the vehicle. I moved around to stroll beside him and watched him shrug.

"It's possible. It was Bobby Kennedy who really got after the Feds to go after the mob guys for possible tax evasion in Vegas. He'd been busting rackets back in the 1950's, but it wasn't until he was appointed attorney general that he could really get the FBI to go after them. That was after Sheriff Montgomery's time."

I jerked a nod, but I wasn't entirely convinced the Sheriff hadn't suspected some sort of skim was going on. He'd said it wasn't busting Al Capone for tax evasion during prohibition, but it was close. Racketeering, embezzlement, busting the casino owners for the skim, that was what eventually got the mob out of Vegas. The mob was a criminal organization. They weren't about to turn legit just because gambling was legal in this state. I doubted they'd really been pulling it over on Sheriff Montgomery back then. He'd just ignored it. I looked at Grissom and could tell he was thinking along the same lines. "It's possible," I repeated, "but you don't really buy it?"

"No," he said.

Inside the lab, I headed for the layout room. Grissom had paged Catherine and Sara to meet us there and they were waiting for us when we entered. They looked up from the evidence before them and Sara's lips pursed into a slight smirk. "Hey Greg, how did the talk go with Sheriff Montgomery?"

I gave her the eyeball. She was leaning over the layout table, elbows resting along the edge. The slight smirk was still in place. Her eyes were filled with mirth. I cocked my head to the side and furrowed my brow, watching her. "Just dandy."

Sara smiled. Her eyes darted slightly. Then, she stood up. "None of the results have come back from Montoya's apartment. Wendy is in now, looking at DNA."

Grissom nodded. "Greg and I got some names to follow up on." He held out the list of names given to us by Sheriff Montgomery, handing it to Catherine. "Catherine, can you follow up on these and eliminate some of the prints. These are the guys who were playing poker with the Under Sheriff and Sheriff Montgomery on Tuesday night."

Catherine nodded, took the list and strolled out of the room, her confident stride and feminine sway briefly stealing my attention. Her strawberry blonde hair flipped up as she rounded the door, the movement as confident as her stride. I could see why she would be the one to follow up on the names the former Sheriff had dropped. A beautiful woman who could play politics, she was the perfect person for Grissom to send out.

Catherine gone, I moved around the table to stand next to Sara. I looked down at the evidence laid out on the table. "Do we have anything else to go on right now?"

Sara shook her head. "Just the same stuff we've been going over."

I nodded, thinking I'd squat down in the layout room and go over all the evidence again anyways, looking for something we might have missed. I didn't like the prospect of waiting around for results, especially this early into shift. Grissom had other ideas though.

"Greg, how is the rest of your caseload coming?"

I cocked my head to the side and gave Grissom the eyeball. "I have a couple other cases open, pending results."

"Anything come in yet?"

There had been a few items that had made their way into the file while I was looking into the death of our French canary. I nodded, gave Sara a wry smile and headed out of the room. I spent the next several hours, not on the classic Vegas murder mystery, but working again on a case of bent cars.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

I'd been making pretty good headway into my case on the car theft ring when I was interrupted by Sara. I couldn't move much farther into the investigation than I had, not without the dick on the case chasing down some leads, so I wasn't at all annoyed by the entrance of the leggy brunette.

Sara stood next to me and leaned against the table, bracing her forearms along the edge. Her upper arm rested against mine. "How's it going?"

I looked her over and took in her slight smirk. Her eyes were shining. I gave a slight shrug. "It's coming along."

My eyes roamed over the lanky brunette, taking in the slim cut of her dark jeans, the way her jacket draped loosely over her upper body, and the slight tinge of pink to her cheeks. She'd been outside. If I thought about it, I hadn't seen her at all in the past few hours. Grissom had been lurking around, but Sara had been conspicuously absent. I turned to her, resting one forearm on the table. "Where have you been?"

"Trick roll."

My eyes narrowed. I gave Sara the up and down. Her smirk grew. Her eyes were watching me, waiting, probably, to see if I'd give her even more of a response. Sara knew I loved going out on those calls, calls where some pro skirt ran the grift on some poor rube or put the squeeze on some easy mark. Feeling her eyes on me, I turned back to the evidence and closed the file on it. "Get anything?"

From the corner of my eye, I saw Sara's smirk transform into a smile. "Lots of prints, some DNA. We'll see if I can get a match." She pushed up from the table and turned to me. "Anyways, are you very busy with this?"

"Just putting it away." I gave her the eyeball. "Why?"

"We got some results from DNA. I was on my way to meet Grissom when I stopped to grab you."

I lifted both my brows and faced her. "Feel free to grab away," I deadpanned.

One of Sara's eyebrows lifted. She let out a small laugh and shook her head. Grabbing my evidence, I followed her from the room.

Sara left me to log in the evidence from my bent cars case. Stowing it away, I headed for the break room where Grissom and Sara were waiting for me.

Sara was up, pouring herself a cup of joe. She brought two mugs to the table and placed one in front of Grissom. He looked up and gave Sara a small smile, before taking a sip of the hot, black liquid and placing the mug back down on the table, next to the DNA results. Sara sat down across from Grissom, sipping on her coffee. I moved to the coffee pot and poured my own mug of joe. Steaming mug in hand, I stole a seat next to Sara and pulled the results towards us. Lifting them from the table, I held them so that both Sara and I could take a look. Results from Montoya's apartment. Samples from rugs, the sofa and his bed sheets. Lots of evidence of sexual activity. Multiple contributors. Montoya and a number of females. Six unknowns, Adele Williams, several contributions from his moll, Lauren Perske, ranging from the old to the new, and a fresh contribution from our dead canary, Camille Vanasse.

I looked up at Grissom. "Adele Williams? Montoya slept with the cocktail waitress?"

Sara snorted. "Apparently Montoya slept with a lot of women. How he managed…"

I felt myself grin at Sara's disbelief. I couldn't see how a grease ball and a wrong gee like that could get the skirts either. That bird oozed slime. I figured he had to be throwing dough. A guy like that probably liked to hit the casinos, lay a few dimes and fool the skirts into thinking they were swimming with a whale.

I watched as Sara looked back at the file. "Camille Vanasse slept with Montoya at his apartment?"

Grissom shrugged. "She had to sleep with him somewhere. There was no evidence of sexual activity at _Ric's_and we know she only slept with Vito Fava at her apartment."

"She went to him?"

"Or she was all hopped up on H. and he took her home," I put in.

I placed the file down on the table and leaned back in my chair. It was silent for a long moment as we were all lost in thought. I leaned forward. "Grissom, do you have the rest of the DNA file?"

Grissom narrowed his eyes and nodded. He reached down beside him and took out the file on all the DNA results from the case. He slid the file across to me. I opened it and flipped through all the sheets of results, pulling out the one sheet of interest to me. Sara leaned over my shoulder, reading from the sheet. "DNA from Vanasse's fingernails?"

I nodded. "Right. Montoya said she scratched him during a rough bout of sex."

"Which is consistent with out results."

"Yeah, but she slept with him at his place, not at _Ric's_. Do you think it's likely a dame like Vanasse would sleep with Montoya, drive across town to the club, clean up and get ready for her night, a night that put her in a glitzy evening gown, without cleaning her fingernails?"

Grissom frowned. Sara snatched the sheet from my hand. "Alright, just to play devil's advocate, because we know what Montoya is going to claim, but what if she was already in the evening gown and didn't clean up before her so called practice set?"

I looked at Sara and lifted and eyebrow. "All her other dresses were in her change room at the club. Her home closet was full of regular, everyday cloths. Besides, we know she didn't overdose from sniffing the nose candy. Somebody helped her along. And, she has hand prints on her neck, like somebody had tried to strangle her, or held her down. Montoya copped to those prints being from his hands, claiming they also came from that same session of rough sex. It's a lot more likely the DNA from beneath her fingernails came from somebody helping her OD at the time of her death than from a sexual encounter several hours before."

"Occum's razor," Sara said.

I nodded. Sara grinned at me. "Great job, Greg."

I looked into her eyes before tearing my gaze away and turning to Grissom. "Is that enough to run him in and hold him?"

Grissom pursed his lips. "The DA would probably think so, but it still gives Montoya reasonable doubt. We still don't know how Camille Vanasse overdosed. We need to find out how the excess heroin got into her system and who put it there."

"Has Henry tested her stomach contents yet?"

Sara shook her head. "It got caught in the backlog. All we got from stomach contents so far is what Doc Robbins was able to give us."

I sighed. "Well, did you find any drugs in Montoya's apartment?"

"Not heroin. We did find cocaine. Apparently Montoya is more of a snow-bird. We pulled his medicine cabinet though and sent it all to tox. Henry is going to test for any opiates."

"When it makes it through the backlog."

Sara shook her head. "Grissom put a priority on it. Henry moved our evidence to the front of the pile."

I smirked, glad Grissom was on the case with us. I'd never get away with trying to move my evidence to the front of the pile. Sara might. Back when I was one of the regular rats in the lab, I'd been known to move up Sara's evidence a time or two. Well, maybe a little more than a time or two if I were to be completely on the level.

Sara noticed my smirk and grinned at me. Grissom scratched the scruff of his chin. "We can bring Montoya in for questioning and we may have enough to hold Montoya for 48 hours, but…"

It wouldn't stick. Grissom was right. The DA might push to lay charges, but Grissom wanted to wait. He wasn't about to recommend to the DA to lay charges, not with what we had. Hauling Montoya in would tip our mitt and put a clock on finding the evidence we needed. Grissom was the kind of bird that liked to fly slow, take in all the scenery, make sure he didn't miss something. If we hauled Montoya in early and had to release him, the bird could end up flying the coop – permanently.

Grissom ran his hand over his mouth. "We did find cocaine in Montoya's apartment. Let's pull Montoya in for possession. We can probably hold him for a few hours at least."

"Until his mouthpiece kicks up a fuss," I said, "complains too loudly, you mean, or Montoya makes bail."

Grissom jerked a rueful nod. "If we bring him in for possession half a day after we'd searched his place, Montoya's lawyer is going to be all over it, even if Montoya wasn't around when we'd executed the search warrant. If we question him about the drugs Sara and I found, it's likely Montoya will claim he didn't know about the cocaine. Seemingly, he has women coming and going from his apartment, so he'll probably claim one of those women brought the drugs in without his knowledge. We can still bring him in on what Sara and I found earlier, but if we want to hold him for any length of time, we might need to find something new."

The odds were long, but Sara and I nodded. I put the sheets of DNA results back into the file. Grissom and Sara stood and moved to the break room door and I followed them. We turned down the hall and heard a buzz. The three of us all leaned over to check our phones on our belt, peeking to see who got the text message.

"Camille Vanasse's parents just landed at McCarran," Grissom said. "Sophia is taking them straight to the morgue. I'll stay here and meet them down there." Grissom folded his phone and pocketed it. "Sara, you and Greg can grab Brass and a couple of uniforms and go have a talk with Montoya."

Grissom left it at that. We knew what we had to do. We needed something to stick, so we had to be alert when we caught up with Montoya. We'd get a uniform to search Montoya and if it looked like he was on something, or if we found drugs on him, we could have Brass haul him in immediately. Otherwise, it was best to play it slow, question him first, see if we couldn't get anything new, and then have Brass bring him in.

Sara gave Grissom a long look and nodded. She was on her phone immediately, calling Brass and the Judge who'd given us our last warrant. She moved quickly down the hall as she spoke into her phone. I handed Grissom the DNA file and followed the speedy, lithe brunette from the building, thinking that the expression, 'ladies first,' probably came from the men enjoying the view from behind.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

Stillness, in Vegas, only came once a day. Just after dawn was the only time the 24 hour city ever seemed to rest, the only time you might encounter a little quiet. Sure, the city never slept, but most of those up stayed close to home, playing the slots or sitting at a table in their hotel's casino, rather than hitting up one of the countless others. The all-nighters, casino hoppers or club hoppers, had often, finally, called it a night, or rather a morning, the rising sun cuing the exit. They'd stick close to home as well. The nine-to-fivers might have been up, but they rarely had yet to make it out. What was left was the few, straggling behind, either up too late or up too early, at war with the hours when the streets of the city thought they might get some respite.

The traffic was light on the Strip. A few cars and a few taxis made up the bulk of it, seven or eight vehicles passing by in those early hours. There were a couple of limos out, shuffling whales and other big spenders around. Foot traffic was light as well. A few parties were still going on. Guys and dolls strolled about in small numbers. A couple young skirts were still in cocktail dresses, sipping out of straws from the tallest drink glasses I had ever seen. The biggest crowd, a crowd of about ten to twelve people, was in front on Lake Bellagio, watching one of the early morning fountain shows, the spectacle of water shooting up and down, the color of the spray changing as daylight established dominance over neon.

Sara drove past it all with mild interest. Her eyes were focused on the road. Her charming, but slightly crooked mouth was busy giving me the rundown on Montoya's nest, the layout, what she and Grissom had found and where. I sat next to her, listening to the words and wondering how many times we'd have to haul Montoya in. It felt like it was becoming a regular business.

We turned off the strip and what little traffic we'd encountered fizzled to nothing. We were the only car on those streets. We pulled up to the front of the apartment building and met Brass by the entrance. "You sure he's home?" I asked.

Brass jerked a nod. "Yeah. We've been keeping a line on him and Fava. Fava has kept it low, but Montoya has been buzzing about town. He left the Tangiers about a half hour ago. Came here."

I frowned at the mention of the Tangiers. Brass and Sara didn't seem to dwell on it as they strode into the building and up the stairs. I followed.

It didn't take a lot of guess work to guess which unit was Montoya's. As soon as we hit his floor, we could hear his voice bellowing out. His shouts were matched by the sounds of breaking glass. Heavy thumps could be heard through the thin walls. Brass pounded on the door. "LVPD, open up!"

A neighbor peeked out and watched as Brass pounded again on the door. Sara drew her gun. The neighbor's eyes widened and shifted. "How long has this been going on?" I asked.

"Twenty minutes," she said, "Since Harry got home." The neighbor disappeared into her apartment.

Brass pounded again. He was ready to ram the door just as the uniforms arrived. Brass shouted out a caution, warning that they were ready to kick down the door. Sara gave me a shove to the side and settled beside me. Brass gave the uniforms the nod. The door swung open and there stood Lauren Perske in a cocktail dress, holding onto the edge of the door. "Can I do something for you?" she asked.

I watched as Brass gave her the eye. "Step aside," he said. "In the hall."

With a smirk, Perske stepped to the side. Brass and the two uniforms pushed past her. More glass broke against some hard surface inside.

I watched from the door as the noise stopped and Montoya glanced up at Brass. His eyes narrowed. "Well, if it isn't the snoopers," he sneered. "You come to mess up my place even more?"

"Looks as though you're doing a pretty good job of it yourself," Brass responded dryly.

"You're a person of interest in an ongoing homicide investigation," Sara put in. "We left you with a copy of the warrant and a receipt of what we obtained."

Montoya gave her the up and down. His eyes raked slowly over her. His narrow eyes glinted. "You want to take a good look at my sheets, doll, there are other ways of doing it." He leered at her.

Sara steeled herself before me. I was about to step forward, but didn't think Sara would appreciate the Sir Galahad act. She was a tough dame, capable of handling herself, and not one to take it from anybody. I didn't envy Montoya at that moment.

Sara only stared at the leering Montoya. It was Brass who took a step forward, right into Montoya's space. Montoya threw his hands up. "What? It was a joke. What's the matter, no sense of humor, flattie?"

"My sides hurt," Brass deadpanned. He glanced back at Sara. "Sara?"

Her eyes narrowed. "How does your girlfriend like your sense of humor?"

"Bet she thinks you're real funny. Think she's right outside, splitting a gut?" Brass asked.

Montoya smirked. "She can take a joke."

I looked over at Lauren Perske. She'd pulled out a cigarette, only of those long slims. It was dangling between her fingers, glowing hot at one end. Perske lifted the gasper to her lips and very coolly, took a long, slow drag. Lifting the cigarette from her mouth, she exhaled slowly. A stream of smoke floated through the hall before dispersing and disappearing into the air.

"What are you doing here, anyways, flattie?" Montoya's voice broke through my reverie. "You took what we wanted."

"We're not done with you."

"Come to haul me back to the clubhouse?"

"As a matter of fact, we are."

"For what? You've got nothing on me."

Brass smirked. "Think again. Right now, we've got you for possession."

Montoya scoffed. "Nice try."

"Check your receipt from the search. The CSIs took some snow out of here when they searched the place."

Montoya's smirk twisted into a sneer. "Don't know nothing about that."

Brass gave Montoya the up and down before staring him dead in the eye. "Are you saying you didn't do a line last night?"

Montoya stilled. His eyes frosted. He watched Brass carefully, and then wiped a hand over his mouth. "Any coke found here wasn't mine. Somebody else probably left it here." I wondered if he'd be dumb enough to try to point the finger at Perske even though she was right in the hall. Montoya's eyes shifted to the door. "Didn't know about it. People are coming and going out of here all the time."

"Oh, we know you're a popular guy," Sara said with a smirk. "In a warrant to search and seize any drugs, we still found cocaine in your home."

"It's not mine."

"Yeah, right," Brass said. He grabbed Montoya's arm, turned him and patted him down. His fingers pulled a baggie of white powder from Montoya's pocket. "And I bet this isn't yours either."

Montoya twisted and shoved at Brass, his shoulder blade smashing into Brass's shoulder. I watched as Brass winced, the blow landing where he'd just recently had a slug removed. Brass was tough as nails, so Montoya's shoulder must have given it to him good. After only a second to recover, Brass twisted Montoya back and handed him off to a uniform. He rubbed at his shoulder.

"You've got no right," Montoya spat out. "This is my home."

The uniform held Montoya still. Brass reached down and put the bracelets on Montoya. I watched, as Brass lied smoothly. "That's where you're wrong. A couple of your neighbors complained about the noise coming from in here."

Montoya scoffed. Brass smirked. "And when we arrived, there were signs of disturbance. We responded accordingly."

Montoya eyed Brass. I glanced at Sara and then back at Montoya, wondering if he would call Brass's bluff. Brass stood silently. For a long, tense moment, they stared at each other, waiting each other out. Brass wasn't entirely on the level about a noise complaint, as the neighbor had not actually dropped a dime to complain, but we had spoken to the neighbor about the noise, and it had sounded like a domestic from the hall. Entry into Montoya's nest and the search of his pockets had been on the up and up.

"Let's go," Brass said, and gestured to the uniforms to lead Montoya out. Montoya stopped next to Sara, letting his eyes rake over her again. "Tall." He smiled. "I like that." His eyes gave her the up and down. "Bet you have a nice set of pins under those pants. You know, I could show you what those get-away sticks would be really good for." He grinned, lecherous, and gave her a wink. The uniform gave him a shove. Montoya passed by me with a smile.

I watched Sara to see what her reaction would be. She looked over at me, ignoring Montoya. "I'll process the apartment," she said.

I was a bit surprised by the non-reaction. A year ago, she probably would have got really hot and given it good to Montoya, but the past year, she'd seemed to have calmed. Now, she let Montoya's words roll right off her. I looked inside the apartment, at all the broken glass strewn about from everything Montoya had found to toss about. I gave her a long look in the eye and nodded. "Watch your step."

Sara jerked a nod and gave me a slight smile. Then, she turned and was quickly busy photographing the place. I glanced out into the hall at Lauren Perske. She was still coolly smoking her slims. "You okay?" I asked.

Perske let out a short laugh. "Just fine, Mr. Sanders."

I gave her the up and down. "What are you doing back here with Montoya again, anyways?" I asked. "Aren't you tired of being his moll?"

Her eyes narrowed. "What business is it of yours?"

I leaned against the doorframe and gave the platinum blonde a long look. Her hair shimmered in the dull light of the hall. Her black cocktail dress molded to her form perfectly. Her long, gorgeous gams were covered by sheer stockings right up to where they emerged, mid-thigh, from the hem of her dress, and the subtle hint of skin beneath silk just made me want to look further. It occurred to me that this was the most clothing I'd ever seen her in and she hadn't lost any of her sex appeal. She probably had a hundred poor joes at her feet and she chose to be with Montoya. She could be daffy for the wrong joe, but it was her life and the only business it was of mine had to do with the case. I shrugged. "Just wondering why a dame like you would hang out with a couple of trouble boys."

Perske blew a line of smoke into my face. "What's it to you?"

"Just asking."

"Think I should breeze off and leave Harry?"

I shrugged again. "You could do better."

"Yeah?" She smiled. "Think so?" She watched as I gave her the eye. Her lips narrowed into a smirk. "Do you think I'd be better off with a guy like you? Are you trying to save me, Greg Sanders?"

"You were begging for my help at the station after you'd pulled your roscoe on Montoya."

Perske leaned back against the wall. She lifted the long, slim cigarette to her mouth and took a puff. Her fingers held the cigarette up by her chin. She exhaled and watched the smoke float across the hall. "So, what are you going to do? Take me away from this? Take care of me?"

"I didn't figure you for the kind of doll that needed taking care of."

She laughed, a low hard sound. Her head fell back against the wall. "Don't be a bunny."

"What about that scene you pulled at the Tangiers? Pointing your little bean-shooter at him?"

Perske stood up. Her arm dropped to her side, the cigarette dangling from her fingers. "I got a little hot. I needed time to cool. I was at work and he was bothering me. He should have given me the time to cool."

I crossed my arms. "So you've cooled now. You're all ready to forgive and forget."

"Baby, I'm chilled."

I scoffed. "I bet you are."

Perske smirked. "What can I say? I'm very forgiving."

I watched Perske. She was still playing it cool. She was chilled, all right, ice cold.

"What's your angle?" I asked.

Her blue/grey eyes narrowed. "Don't know what you're talking about."

"You point a gun at Montoya when you find out he's cheating on you, but you go back to his joint with him and act all cool when he stands here and hits on my colleague. He was leering at another woman right after you found out he cheated on you and it didn't faze you a bit."

"That bother you?"

I said nothing. Lauren Perske's eyes roamed over me. "What?" I asked.

"Just trying to figure out who you'd rather sleep with – me or that pretty little colleague of yours."

"I wouldn't toss either of you out of bed, if that's what you're asking, but that's not what I'm here for. I want to know what happened."

"I don't know anything about _Ric's_."

"What about this morning?" I gestured to the mess in the apartment.

Perske shrugged and took another drag of her cigarette. "We came back here. Harry saw the mess your print powder left and he got a little hot. Maybe he threw a few things."

I gave her the eye, looking over her porcelain skin for any signs she'd been hit. Her skin was flawless. Still, sometimes you couldn't always see the marks. "Throw anything your way?" I asked.

She smirked and shook her head. "Nah. Got the floor and the wall good, though."

My eyes raked over her. She seemed slightly amused by Montoya being hauled in. There was no way I was about to buy the whole forgiveness angle. "What are you protecting him for?"

Perske turned slightly away, puffing on her cigarette. "Don't know what you're jabbing about."

"Sure you don't. You know something. It's time you were on the level. Spill."

Perske turned back towards me, her icy grey eyes hard. "I told you, I'm no stoolie. Get yourself another pigeon."

"I like you just fine."

She gave me the up and down. "I bet you do."

I stood up and crossed the hall, standing right before her. "It's time you start singing."

"If you're looking for a canary, she's dead."

"What do you mean by that?"

Perske smirked. She leaned back against the wall again and took another long drag. Smoky air floated between us. She gave it a blow, sending it into my face. "Not a thing, other than that Camille was the lounge singer."

"What were you doing at _Ric's _in your showgirl get-up?"

"I told you already."

"You told me a lot of things. It's time for the truth."

Perske stood straight. "It's time I leave, unless you're going to haul me downtown as well."

I nodded to the exit at the end of the hall.

Perske smirked. "I just need my purse." She moved towards the doorway. I stopped her with my hand on her wrist. "If you don't start talking, you might end up being charged with obstruction or withholding evidence."

She shook her head and shrugged. "I don't know a thing."

I gave her a long look. "You know more than you'll cop to. You've got a lot more going on than you're owning up to."

Perske smirked. I followed her as she strolled into the apartment, towards Sara. Sara looked up. "Purse," I said.

Sara held the small, glittery clutch purse up. She opened it up and peeked inside. Lauren Perske's eyes narrowed.

"Had to make sure you didn't have another weapon you wanted to pull on us," I said. "Thought you might be getting a little hot."

Perske looked at me, and then back at Sara, before grabbing the clutch. I watched as Sara's lips twisted up into a slight smile. Perske gave her the eye and then turned back to me. I looked up from watching Sara, back to Lauren Perske to see her eyes fixed on me. The ice was gone. The blue in her eyes shimmered and for a second, my gaze was locked onto hers. With a small smirk, Perske leaned into me. "You know, Greg, I wouldn't toss you out of bed either."

I turned and looked at her, watching her smile and saunter away, tossing her blonde hair over her shoulder as she went.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

Montoya's apartment was a mess of shattered glass, deep ridges and fractured surfaces reflecting prisms of light. The striking chaos of it was worth a good stare. If it were a crime scene, we could be there for hours, but as it was, it did not take long to process. Grissom and Sara had already given the place a thorough peek earlier, taking what we needed for the case, so all that was left for us at that time was to take pictures of the scene we'd come across when we went to jab at Montoya again, and to do another quick search for some hop. The neighbor had said the noise had begun as soon as Montoya got home, so we figured he was too busy being hot to take the time to hide any drugs he had brought home. I figured that if we found any drugs, apart from what Brass had pulled from Montoya's pockets, they would be in plain sight. Still, treading carefully around shards of glass, we did another search and came up empty. We bagged a couple of items for evidence and left the rest of the mess for Montoya.

We made a quick stop at the lab, logging in the little evidence we took and printing off some of the photos to place in the file we were building on Montoya. On the way out, Henry stopped Sara in the hall and told her that none of the pills she'd put into evidence contained any opiates. I dropped a line to Brass to tell him the news and found out he was waiting for Montoya's mouthpiece to show up so that he could begin the interrogation.

Since we had a little time before Brass could begin to grill Montoya, Sara decided to stop for a good cup of java. We took it to the station and, leaning against the Denali, sipped it slowly in the morning sun.

Enjoying the hot liquid that warm morning, I turned in appreciation to the pleasing figure of the long-stemmed brunette next to me. Sara was leaning against the truck, with her back resting against the door and her legs crossed. She held her paper mug in her two hands up before her face. Her slender fingers wrapped around the cup. She had a pensive look on her face. Her brow was wrinkled into a charming frown. I quirked a small smile. "What's on your mind?"

"We didn't find any heroin at Montoya's apartment."

I frowned. "Maybe he used it all, or got rid of it. He's a snowbird, so there was no reason for him to take the hop home."

Sara shrugged, looking unconvinced. I cocked my head to the side and watched her. "What?" I asked.

"How did he get the drugs out? The only prints we found on any bindles were Camille Vanasse's. If Harry Montoya helped her overdose, where is the evidence?"

I shrugged. "He took brought it out with him. We thought cause of death was strangulation. We processed everyone at the scene, but we didn't search them."

"But Brass hauled Montoya downtown when Montoya wouldn't cooperate. Harry Montoya did get searched. He was the only one."

I frowned. "Montoya could have ditched the drugs before the cops arrived. He would have had enough time." Even as I said the words, I was not completely convinced. I was starting to think that maybe Montoya had a little help. I thought back to the show he and Lauren Perske had put on for us back at the Tangiers, and how I saw Perske at his apartment again only a day and a half after she'd pulled the roscoe on him. Perske was a knockout, but she was dangerous and maybe also a little screwy. She could go from naughty to nice faster than it took to shoot a pair of dice. Or maybe it was Fava, Montoya's long time pal and bankroll. It probably pissed Fava off good if he found out the girl who was daffy over him slept with his old pal, and Montoya was the kind of pal who'd help put it right if Fava asked him to. The overdose could have been a two man job, Montoya to hold her by the throat while someone else forced the heroin in.

I looked back at Sara and watched the way her brow wrinkled and lips puckered. I was about to ask her what she was thinking, when Montoya's shady mouthpiece pulled up. Sara pushed up from the car and watched the shyster get out of his luxury car. We followed the shyster inside.

The halls of PD were a bustle of activity. All the johns who'd been booked overnight were cuffed and waiting for transportation to the courthouse for arraignment. I followed Sara past the interrogation room where Brass would soon start grilling Montoya. We stopped at Brass's office and I watched as the homicide dick peeked up from behind his desk.

Inside, we passed on everything new we had and I mentioned my suspicions of the two man job, Montoya's handprints decorating the neck of the exotic songbird, holding her down while someone else forced the drugs in her throat. "At the very least," I told him, "somebody else disposed of the bindles and maybe the rest of the drugs for Montoya."

Brass nodded. His brows furrowed in thought. He'd use the theory to try to trap Montoya, or to try to get him to cop a deal and spill on someone else.

Brass stood up and moved around his desk. Sara handed him the file of the photos she'd taken of Montoya's trashed apartment. He took them and strolled out of his office and to the interrogation room.

From the outside, we watched as Montoya whispered into his mouthpiece's ear. The mouthpiece nodded and Montoya smirked. Sara looked at me. "Why don't you join Brass in interrogation."

My brow furrowed. I was still pretty green at the whole interrogation room thing, so I was surprised she'd suggested it. I thought she'd want to have another go at Montoya, especially after how he'd treated her at his apartment. I stared at Sara and watched her smirk. "Go ahead, Greg."

I shrugged and followed Brass into the interrogation room, taking a seat across from Montoya's mouthpiece.

""What's this about?" the shyster asked as soon as we'd taken a seat.

"We're filing charges for possession," Brass said.

The mouthpiece scoffed. "A little cocaine found in his apartment. My client has no knowledge of how those drugs found their way into his apartment."

"We're running prints on the baggies we found them in." I put in. I turned to Montoya. "What's the over/under on those prints not being yours?"

"We also found a baggie of cocaine on your client this morning," Brass added.

"I'll be filing a motion to dismiss on those charges later. Wrongful search." The mouthpiece smiled.

Montoya glanced at his mouthpiece and slid back in his chair, leaning against the back rest. He looked uninterested. I watched as Brass opened a folder and pulled out some of the prints Sara had taken of Montoya's apartment. He slid the photos across the table. "We responded to a domestic at Harry Montoya's apartment this morning. When we searched your client for any possible weapons, we came up with the cocaine. The possession charges are going to stick. Incidentally, we'll also be leveling your client with a disorderly conduct charge."

The lawyer scoffed. "Disorderly conduct?" Montoya's lawyer was ripe with disbelief. His face twisted into a scowl. He had the glassy eyes of a hawk. He stared at Brass, eyes focused. The charge was minor and he probably thought it was bogus. It was. A disorderly conduct charge wouldn't stick. We were just buying time. Lauren Perske wasn't about to file any charges; she'd just been let off with a pretty minor fine on her own disorderly conduct charges. Montoya's neighbors weren't about to drop a dime on him either. The neighbor in the hall had looked like she hadn't wanted anything to do with Montoya, the police response to the shouting, or any of Montoya's other shady business. The shyster tossed one of the photos back to Brass. It floated across the surface of the table, fell that last half inch and stopped. "This is a fishing expedition and you're harassing my client."

"No, but we are looking at filing murder charges soon."

Montoya shot forward. "What?"

Brass shook his head. He gave Montoya the up and down. "You copped to the handprints on her neck. It's your skin under her fingernails."

"Yeah, from sex. I told you she wanted it rough."

"You slept with her at your apartment, Harry," I said. "Your bed sheets tell us that story. So, how is it that a girl like Camille Vanasse goes back to the club, cleans up and gets ready to sing or practice a couple of sets without cleaning her fingernails? A classy girl who plays the cello and tickles the ivory for a crowd? A girl like that would keep those short nails clean, so why would she still have your skin under those nails?"

"I don't know. Camille showed up at my place all dizzy and hopped up and wanting to go a round. She left right after. She didn't clean up. She went straight to the club from my place, and she was already ready for the night when she left my place."

"Think you can convince a jury of that, Harry?" Brass asked. "They are going to see your handprints on her neck, your DNA under her fingernails, they're going to hear about your nice little temper and they are going to make you for it. We know somebody forced Camille Vanasse to overdose and you are looking good for it."

"You're wrong, flattie."

I glanced at Brass and then gave Montoya a long look. "Vanasse liked to take her hop up the nose. She couldn't overdose from sniffing, especially not when her hop was laced with coffee. You slept with her, somebody else's girl, and either your best pal or your own moll found out. So, you decided to make things right. You sent her on the night train back to Nice. You held Camille Vanasse down, maybe forced her jaw open while either Fava or Perske forced the dope down her throat."

"That's the story you're trying to sell?" Montoya glared at me. "You're way off. I don't know how that dame expired."

"Sure you do. You were right there," Brass cut in. "You were holding her down by the throat, subduing her so that somebody else could fill her with hop. So, who helped you or who did you help? Tell us what happened and you could get off with a lighter sentence."

Montoya was silent. He stared forward at the glass of the one way mirror, his eyes fixed on the mirror. Brass leaned forward. "Right now it's just you. You're going to take the rap for everything. Give us a name and we could convince the DA to go easy on you."

"I'm not giving you a damn thing!"

We weren't getting anywhere with Montoya. Everything I'd figured he would claim he did, he and Perske and Fava and the rest of the mugs at _Ric's_. These birds were pretty good at keeping their gums shut. "You want to take the rap alone?" I asked.

Montoya's steely eyes cut into me. "I didn't off that canary, kid. You ain't gonna pin this on me."

"Tell it to a jury," I said. I stood up and walked out of the room. Brass could spend the next few hours jawing at Montoya. Unless we found something new, Montoya wasn't about to start spilling. Find the right thing, make the right accusations and these mugs might find their way to being on the level. I wanted to find the one thing that might get Montoya to sing.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**

Sara was on the phone, updating Grissom on our progress as soon as we stepped out of the Police Department and into the dry morning heat. From beside her, I watched as Sara's facial expressions changed a number of times. She frowned when she told Grissom that we hadn't really gotten anywhere with Montoya. She nodded at something Grissom had said later, though Grissom couldn't see her. Her mouth pursed as a look of understanding, or resignation fell across her face. The right corner of her lips turned up in a crooked smile as she ended the call. On the phone, Grissom had suggested discussing the case over breakfast. Sara relayed this to me and we ended up leaving the clubhouse for Franks Diner instead of the lab.

It was shaping up to be a hot day, clouds not so conspicuously absent from the sky and the blazing sun already beating down hard. A bead of sweat trickled down my face by the corner of my eye. The crown of my head felt like it was baking beneath the rays. It almost felt like a reprieve to step out of the heat and bask in the cool air conditioned atmosphere of our regular greasy spoon. The air may have felt stale and greasy inside the dive, but at least it was cool.

The place was nearly empty, meaning it would be pretty easy to talk freely. There was a lone customer at the far end of the counter and a couple seated at a table across the diner, over by a window. Grissom was waiting for us in a booth. He was facing forward, both forearms leaning against the table and a cup of joe in his right hand. I slid in across from him and watched as Sara slid in beside him. Grissom shifted in his seat to face outwards slightly. As he did this, his left arm came up on the top of the ugly brown polyester seat back. His right arm, hand still gripping that cup of joe, slid along the table and rested against the wall. In a comfortable position, his left arm dropped and disappeared below the table. He took a sip of coffee. Sara reached for her mug and flipped it over. She looked at Grissom. "Have you ordered yet?"

I watched as Grissom shook his head. "I was waiting for you guys. Catherine should be here soon."

The waitress came by and filled Sara's cup. I flipped mine over for the waitress and watched the pretty little blond fill my mug. "Thanks," I said.

The waitress gave me a little smile and nodded. I watched her leave and return with a couple of menus. She was new.

Sara flipped open her menu and started to look through. "I'm starving."

She usually was. For a slender dame, she sure could pack it away. She could get pretty focused at work and forget to stop for anything, including sleep and food, but anytime she had a moment to spare, she could be seen nibbling on something.

"I don't know what you're looking at that for," I teased, nodding to the menu. "We all know what you're going to order."

One of Sara's eyebrows lifted. "Really? And just what is that?"

"You only order either one of two things. Since you're starving, it's not going to be the fruit bowl with yogurt and granola. Today, it's going to be pancakes and eggs."

Grissom chuckled. Sara puckered her lips in a smirk. "What if I feel like an omelet?"

"You don't like your omelets to run," I said, lifting my cup of joe to my mouth.

Sara let out a quick laugh, folded her menu closed and put it down. She turned to Grissom. "How did it go with Camille Vanasse's parents?"

Grissom gave his head a slight shake. "How it often goes, except with a slight language impediment, which may have been an advantage as much as a hindrance."

I raised a brow. "You can parlez-vous the français?" It shouldn't have surprised me. Apparently Grissom had a number of talents unknown to the rest of us.

Grissom jerked a nod. "A little, haltingly. Sofia was there and she's fluent."

"So, what did they say?" Sara asked. She turned slightly to Grissom and waited. Grissom paused for a moment. Sara's lips had flattened out into a closed-mouthed, soft, understanding sort of smile.

Grissom took a sip of coffee, placed the cup of joe down and fingered it with both hands. "After they'd composed themselves, they wanted to know where we were in the investigation. They are waiting for us to release the body so that they can cremate it and take the ashes back to France. They are anxious to get their daughter's ashes back." His left arm came up from under the table and rested on top.

Sara let out a small nod. "And they may have to wait awhile yet. Where are they staying?"

"They're booked into the Wynn."

I took a sip of java. "Did they give you anything?" I asked. "About Vanasse?"

"They haven't seen her for about a year. She went back to visit at the end of last summer. Fava was with her. They said she was crazy about him. They didn't like how she'd run off with him. They said she'd always been filled with a joie de vivre. She loved music, sailing and the sea. When she followed an older man to the desert, they felt like she was throwing her life away and didn't understand it. They haven't been able to maintain touch with her for about eight or nine months. Her calls became really irregular and less and less frequent. They had a hard time getting a hold of her. They thought she sounded sad or washed out and they tried to get her to come home, but she wouldn't." Grissom sipped at his coffee. "It didn't go well for you at PD?"

"Montoya's not spilling any secrets," I said, "but at least we can hold him for possession for now. He's not going to be arraigned today; the line up is too long. He'll make tomorrow's docket though, so if the judge decides to release him on a minor charge with only a fine, at least it buys us a day. Brass is still there, working on him."

Grissom nodded. Sara lifted her mug to her mouth and took a long, slow drink. "You know, that is the most I've heard Montoya's lawyer talk in interrogation."

I nodded. "He usually prefers to do his chinning in front of the cameras. It wouldn't surprise me if that mouthpiece was jabbing at a bunch of newshawks right now."

Sara let out a short laugh. The door to the diner rattled. I glanced up to see Catherine striding in. She slid in next to me and immediately flipped her mug over. "Hey, sorry I'm late. I dropped off all the prints with Mandy to compare, and then I had to make a call to Lindsay and tell her I'd be working late. For once, it wasn't an issue. She's going out to Lake Mead with friends later today."

"It should be a good day for that. It's looking like a hot one."

Catherine jerked a nod. "Did you order yet?"

We all shook our heads. The waitress came by and filled up Catherine's cup. She tried handing Catherine a menu, but Catherine shook her head. "I'll have ham and eggs please, two eggs, over easy."

The waitress nodded. The rest of us put in our orders and I smirked when Sara asked for pancakes and eggs. She glanced at me just after she ordered. The glance was brief, but the smile that accompanied it lingered. I leaned forward on my elbows, drank some java and watched her.

"How did it go with Montoya?" Catherine asked.

Sara and I both shook our heads. I shifted in my seat and looked at Catherine. "We can't find anything to link him to any opiates."

"So far, the only heroin we did find was all Camille Vanasse's," Sara added.

"So, whoever killed Camille Vanasse used her heroin."

"But they didn't touch the bindles, or the baggie. The only prints are Vanasse's and there weren't any smudges or anything to suggest somebody else touched them."

"But she was with Montoya not long before she overdosed?"

Sara nodded. "Yeah, back at Montoya's place."

"Alright, let's talk it out," Grissom said.

Sara frowned. "What if he brought her back there, all hopped up, thinking he could take advantage of her, things got a little rough, well, more than a little if we take into account those bruises on her neck…"

"Which could have come from some bird forcing hop down the pipe," I said.

Sara cocked her head. "Sure, but Montoya's argument still plays. Camille Vanasse was not strangled to death. Doc Robbins did say the vaginal bruising was indicative of rough sex, and as for the bruises on Vanasse's neck, junkies bruise if you breathe on them. Montoya could have got a little carried away. Camille Vanasse freaks out and flees back to the club…"

"And then what?" I asked. "Montoya follows her, trying to make sure she isn't going to spill to Fava? He forces her to overdose?"

Catherine shook her head. "No, an addict like Vanasse? She snorts a little more heroin to take the edge off," Catherine said. I figured Catherine might know something about that. Back when Catherine was Eddie Willows's frau and prancing her pins around the pole, it was rumored she used to take a little something to take the edge off. She looked over at me. "Camille Vanasse was at the club at least a couple of hours before she overdosed, if we go by what the witnesses said. She was in between sets. Unless they are all covering for Harry Montoya…"

I glanced between the two sharp and desirable women. "So how does she overdose? We still only have her prints on the bindles and baggie."

Sara had been taking a sip of her coffee. She placed the mug down and shrugged. "If only she touched the heroin that killed her? She took too much? Was so freaked out that she purposely O.D.'ed?"

"You think that girl pulled the Dutch act?" I asked, not so sure if it played and seeing that Sara felt the same way. She was just playing an angle, without much conviction behind her words. "She liked the nose candy and she couldn't overdose by sniffing."

"What if she swallowed it?"

Grissom shook his head. "No, it was brown powder laced with coffee. If she ate it, some of it would have been left behind in her mouth, in her teeth, or on the inside of her cheek. Doc Robbins didn't find any traces of heroin in her mouth. It had to be washed down."

"There was only one empty baggie with traces of heroin as well." Catherine took a sip of coffee and looked at Sara. "Most of it was probably in the bindles we found, and the rest was probably the stuff Vanasse took up the nose. It's not enough to put her levels up that high, so whatever the other opiates came in is missing."

"They could still be pill form," Grissom said. "There were no injection marks and nothing to suggest it was Vanasse's heroin that killed her."

"So she had to have ingested it," I said, "with a little help."

Sara nodded. "And there were no bottles of water or drinking glasses, or anything in that room to help wash it down."

"Wine," Catherine said. "Doc said the stomach contents contained wine and we found a red wine stain on her dress. The killer probably used wine to mix in the drugs or to wash them down."

I jerked a nod. "So she had to have had help, because pill bottles or drinking classes and half filled wine bottles don't disappear on their own. The bruises on her neck could be from somebody holding her down while forcing her to drink a Mickey Finn. There were a couple of empty slots in the wine rack and a few places available for some missing glasses behind the bar. Something was taken out of that club." I paused. "There was time between the 911 call and the arrival of the cops."

Sara nodded. "So, who had motive and opportunity?"

I shrugged. "Everybody. My money is still on Harry Montoya. He watches her and stews for a couple of hours. He sees her sniffing some more nose candy and lets the wheels turn until he could think of a way to make her murder look like just another junkie overdosing. Vanasse could have had more H. lying around in another baggie, giving Montoya access to the drugs he needed and Montoya could have used the time between her death and the arrival of the police to ditch the evidence. He was laying odds on us thinking it was an overdose."

Sara cocked her head to the side. "Montoya's pretty volatile though. He gets heated and strikes out quickly. He doesn't control his temper. He trashed his own apartment because he got angry over our print powder, and twenty minutes of throwing things didn't calm him down any. He has priors for assault. He's an act first and maybe think about it later kind of a guy. Would he really wait a couple of hours to kill Vanasse? Would he even think about making it look like an overdose?" She shook her head. "No, he would have fit better if Vanasse had died of strangulation."

"Unless he didn't figure her for spilling to Fava until a couple hours later, then blows up, strangles her, sees her heroin and forces it down her throat."

"If Vanasse did spill about sleeping with Montoya, or if they had suspected something, then Fava and Perske had motive and opportunity as well." Grissom let out a long breath. "We need to find the missing evidence."

I scratched the top of my head and took another sip of java. "Alright, if our killer was trying to get rid of some bindles of drugs and some wine glasses, where would he take them?"

"He, or she would trash them," Sara said, her brow pursed in thought. "Not right outside the club, but close enough so that the killer would have time to get back. It probably took a little time to clean up, so our killer probably thought it was better to chance being seen at the club than fleeing from it. You know, we didn't check the dumpsters in the alley for anything."

"No," Catherine said. "The crime scene was inside, and the bruises on the neck had suggested she'd died of strangulation."

I emptied the last of my java into my mouth and swallowed. "Well I'm sure a few birds had to have lammed. They could have killed her and taken the evidence with them, but what connection would they have had to her and why would they have killed her? Camille Vanasse's connection to everything was Fava, so it had to have been somebody from the club. If it was somebody who was still there, the drugs, or the bindles, plus whatever was used to help the drugs along, should be nearby. If we can find where they ditched the evidence, it might be enough to link someone to Camille Vanasse's murder and have it stick."

Catherine nodded. "I'll go back and check all the dumpsters after breakfast. Hopefully they haven't been emptied yet."

"I'll help you," Sara said. She leaned forward and sipped at her coffee. Her brow was still wrinkled in contemplation. Our young waitress came by and set a plate in front of her, causing Sara to have to lean back and lift her arms. Her face softened. The arrival of our food had interrupted her train of thought.

A waft of the aroma of hot grease rose up from my plate and into my nose. I looked down at my bacon and eggs and then across the table at Grissom's order of eggs and toast. I hadn't paid much attention to what he'd ordered at first, but seeing his order across from me caused a slight lift of the brow. I cocked my head to the side. He'd told Sheriff Montgomery he was cutting down on the red meat, but I'd figured that for a quick Grissom quip. Guess he was trying to trim the fat. Apparently that conversation with Sheriff Montgomery had been more telling than I'd originally figured. My mind went back to that conversation, thinking back to what else had been said. My brow scrunched. "Was there a phone line inside _Ric's_?"

Across from me, Grissom and Sara's looks mirrored my own. Sara chewed slowly on her pancake and frowned. She swallowed. "No."

Catherine looked over at me. "The 911 call came from a cell. What are you thinking?"

"Sheriff Montgomery had said something about the Feds not being able to tap the phone at _Ric's_ because Ricardo Ajala or Nicky Fava and the boys had never installed a phone line."

"Really?" Catherine frowned.

I jerked a nod. The waitress returned with a fresh pot of coffee, filling up our mugs. I thanked her and took another sip of java. "Yeah, and none of us saw a phone line when we processed the joint."

Sara looked across at me and grinned. "Nice work, Greg."

I met her eyes. The corners of my lips turned up. I took a bite of food. Chewing it, I continued on. "Back in the Sheriff's day, it was all about privacy. The Midwest boys were using it as a meet joint, so they wanted to keep it well under the radar. No phone and the back alley location made it really hard to do surveillance on the joint. They couldn't bug the joint without probable cause, but the Feds tried. Somebody inside _Ric's_ swept for bugs and got rid of them all."

Sara looked at me. "The FBI can't place bugs inside without probable cause either."

I shrugged. "Hoover was the Director. He tried that racket all the time. It's one of the reasons the syndicate was able to keep operating in Vegas as they did. When the Feds tried to prosecute, everything would get thrown out of court. When Bobby Kennedy became Attorney General and couldn't get any convictions because of Hoover's illegal bugs and wire taps, Kennedy ripped into FBI Director for it. It wasn't until they put in legal taps that they were able to bust the mob for all their rackets and eventually shut down the mob's interests in Vegas."

"You've been doing some reading, Greg," Grissom said. I nodded. I'd read a little bit about some of that mess when I'd read Lois O'Neill's book, but after the conversation with Sheriff Montgomery, I'd looked into it a little further. I let out a small, ironic laugh. "Back when _Ric's _opened, they could have left those bugs and gotten a real laugh about failed attempts to shut the place down."

"But they weren't only protecting their own interests at _Ric's_," Catherine said. "They were protecting their customers'."

"Right," I said, looking at Catherine. "All those high pillows from the Midwest, or suits and highbinders who couldn't be seen hanging out with trouble boys, or those butter and egg men who were put in the black book and banned from casinos, not to mention the parade of celebrities that seemed to pass through. They were the reason the birds from _Ric's _brought in an exterminator to get rid of all the bugs. Don't you find it odd that the joint still doesn't have a phone line though? It's a different time. Mob interests are out of the city. _Ric's_ is supposed to be a legitimate club now. Why wouldn't they put a phone line in?"

Grissom was leaning back against the wall and seatback with a thoughtful look on his face. "Everybody uses a cell these days, but that could really only account for the past few years." He pursed his lips. "Then again, _Ric's_ is still a private club and discretion is paramount."

I took a bite of bacon and chewed it slowly. Washing it down with coffee, I glanced around the table. "Something is still going on over there, and not just runners coming in and placing bets for crooked suits. Look at the customers, Bernard Leonarduzi, Max Calvada, Sal Marchiano, Sam Braun…" I trailed off, glancing sideways at Catherine. "Plus, the birds who hit up the poker table, Alderman Preston Connolly, Commissioner Jack Archer…" I lifted up a fork of runny eggs and forced myself to swallow. "And the joint has to be making money. Fava has a Chicago bankroll. Vito Fava could not have inherited that much from his father to keep up with his lifestyle, tailored suits, Versace watches, trips to the French Riviera, expensive gifts for his girls… Plus, he had a bartender and a cocktail waitress on staff, one of his own girls all glitzied up for torching, and his pal's showgirl moll in costume. He doesn't put them all on the payroll for his own amusement."

"Maybe it's time we had another talk with Fava," Catherine said.

Grissom nodded. "This afternoon, when you're fresh. Go home after you check the dumpsters and get some rest. That goes for everybody. I'll pull Fava's financials and have them ready for when we bring Fava back in."

I jerked a nod. I wanted to be there when Fava was brought in again, so I figured it would be better to be fresh. We finished up our food and rose to pay. I followed Catherine to the till, with Grissom and Sara right behind us. Stepping outside, Catherine and I waited for Grissom and Sara to settle their bills. When they stepped out, we split up and made tracks, Grissom for the lab, Sara and Catherine for some dumpster duty and me, I traded the heat of the sun and the grease of the dive for a comfortable bed in my cool apartment.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22**

It was late afternoon and the midday sun was still burning hot. I stepped into PD and met Grissom and Catherine in Jim Brass's office. The homicide dick was behind his desk, looking over a file. Grissom was sitting in a chair opposite, his elbows perched upon his knees, while Catherine was lounging back on the brown sofa in Brass's office. Despite rummaging through dumpsters for a couple of hours and getting only a few hours rest, Catherine looked as attractive as ever. Sitting in the homicide dick's cool office, she was fresh and ready to go, the consummate woman.

I took a seat next to Catherine. "Where's Sara?"

"She's at the lab," Grissom told me. I jerked a nod. Sara was like a pit bull when she worked a case. She didn't let off. She would likely be egging the labrats for results or looking for something Brass could use in interrogation.

I turned and gave Catherine the up and down. "Did you get anything from the dumpsters?"

Catherine shook her head. "Sara and I searched all the nearby dumpsters for over three hours and didn't find anything."

"They weren't emptied, were they?"

"No. There was almost a week's worth of garbage in them, but nothing that resembled drugs and no glasses. We pulled all the bags and bottles we could find and sent them to trace and tox, but none of the bags we found looked like they might have traces of heroin, and none of the drinking bottles we found were wine bottles. I'm not holding out much hope."

I watched as Brass wiped his hand over his mug, his thumb rubbing across one eyelid. He leaned back in his seat and tossed the file onto the desk. "We'll start with this, then. Who's taking this one?"

Catherine stood up. Grissom gave her a nod, handing over the interrogation to her. It was a smart move. Catherine was the best equipped to get a bird like Fava to sing a good tune.

"Alright, then," Brass said, standing. He followed Catherine through the door, handing her the file in the hall. Grissom waited for me to stand and exit Brass's office before he followed. I waited for him to catch up and matched my stride to his. I thought about the case, the dead girl with an exotic background, the back alley joint with a mysterious past, the shady characters and the stunning, but dangerous showgirl. I smiled at the thought. In a case like this, there was always a dame involved. Then, there was the boss, the high pillow. "You think Fava's our guy?"

"I'm not sure of anything, just yet."

"But you think he's involved."

Grissom stopped and cocked his head to the side. "What do you think, Greg?"

"I think that there are some things going on a _Ric's _that need explaining, and Fava's the man for that, but for Camille Vanasse…" I shook my head. "My bet is on Montoya."

Grissom stayed facing me, his eyes narrowed slightly. It took a moment for me to realize he wanted me to go on.

"We figure there were some other birds at the club, right?"

Grissom nodded.

"But the only people left worked for the club, everybody but Harry Montoya and his moll, Lauren Perske. Everybody else scrammed."

"And because Harry Montoya and Lauren Perske didn't, Montoya must have killed Camille Vanasse."

I shrugged. "Sure," I said. "Why else would he still be at the club when the police arrived? He didn't work there. He could have dusted with everybody else we suspect was there earlier that night. He didn't. He let himself be caught at the club and kicked up a fuss when we tried to process him. I think he stuck around to clean up the scene and was afraid to scram after that."

"And Lauren Perske?"

Lauren Perske was another question entirely. Sure, I thought that showgirl was involved, but she wasn't the one holding Camille Vanasse down when Vanasse took her final sip. Perske didn't bear any of the marks of what was sure to have been a bit of a struggle. Somebody else had done the dirty work. "Montoya had her stick around," I said, "or she chose to. Perske seemed more amused by it all than anything." Even as I said it, I wasn't convinced, but Montoya was the horse I was riding and how it all fit together after that would come out eventually. My bet was on Perske to place. Perske carried with her an edge of danger, a rose with sharp thorns. That dame ran hot and cold. She could have just stuck around to enjoy the show, but I didn't see her as the kind of doll that would run back to Montoya after what he did. There was another reason she was back to playing nice with Montoya. She knew something. She liked to tread along the edge and my dime said that while she may not have done the deed, she was also involved somehow.

Grissom looked as though he was considering it. Then his lips curled up slightly in the corners. "We can't get ahead of the evidence, Greg. Watch the interrogation. We might learn something."

He turned back down the hall. I jerked a small nod and followed him into the observation room.

Catherine was just taking her seat in the interrogation room when I glanced at her from the observation room. Brass was already seated, his back straight. Across from him, Fava looked as sharp as ever, tailored suit, silk tie, Versace watch. While Montoya had been making noise all over town, Fava had been lying low, like a good little mob man. He sat back, relaxed as ever, not at all concerned about being brought back in. The receding hair line before his shortly cut, brown hair was free of perspiration. His steely grey eyes focused on Catherine with a look more of appreciation than annoyance. He was cool, calm, in control. I turned my gaze to Catherine, hoping she would be the one to rattle him.

Fava's mouthpiece leaned forward in his chair. "Do you mind explaining why you had my client brought in?"

"We just had a few questions for your client."

Fava gave Catherine the up and down. His lips curled up into a smile. "How can I help?"

"We were wondering if you could clear a few things up for us."

Fava gestured with his hand for Catherine to continue. I watched from behind as Catherine relaxed into her seat. "Does _Ric's _have a phone line?"

Fava frowned. "No, but you probably already knew the answer to that one."

Catherine nodded. "We did. We checked."

"Are you going to be asking my client more questions that you already know the answer to? Did you just bring him in to waste his time?"

Brass's line of vision shot to Fava's mouthpiece. "We brought him in because we are investigating a homicide at his club."

Catherine looked at Fava. "Why haven't you installed a phone line?"

"What's this got to do with your investigation?" the mouthpiece asked.

Catherine kept her eyes on Fava. Fava shook his head and whispered something to his lawyer. The mouthpiece whispered something back. Fava jerked a nod. He looked back at Catherine. "As a courtesy, I will answer your question. We didn't need a phone line. I can be reached on my cell. Everybody uses the cell phone these days."

"But the club has never had a phone line installed," Catherine stated. "Not even before cell phones."

Vito Fava shrugged. "Look, Miss Willows, we are a private club. A person can't call ahead and make reservations. He, or she, can't line up at the door and get in, either. He, or she, has to be invited. You know, once upon a time, that invitation would have extended to you, Catherine."

One of my eyebrows lifted. Catherine scoffed. "That place has never been my scene."

"Oh I know. It was always too discreet for you. You never wanted to waste your time by coming down. You preferred attention."

Catherine let the remark pass. She shifted in her chair, leaning forward slightly. "It still doesn't explain the lack of a phone line. How did people reach you back then?"

"When people come, they don't want to be disturbed. Discretion is important. If I needed to be reached, people knew where to find me."

Catherine leaned back. "I'm curious, how does a business run without a phone?"

"We don't do business by phone, Miss Willows. We are a club, not a call center."

"And if there is an emergency? If somebody needs an ambulance? If a 911 call has to be made because a young woman is found dead in her dressing room?"

"Well, thankfully now people carry cell phones," Fava said. He paused and leaned back. "Honestly, I've never given a thought to putting a phone line in. The place has never had one. My father never felt the need to put one in. We're a private establishment. If, in the past, we were faced with an emergency, our door man and our staff were trained to seek out help immediately."

"Having to go out for help just buys time for people committing crimes."

Fava's eyes raked over Catherine. "With only a select, private clientele, we don't expect any crimes to be committed in our establishment. The place employed men to diffuse any tense situations and seek help if needed. Now, conveniently, we call on our cell phones." He stopped, shifted in his seat and leaned forward again. "Look, there are plenty of occupations and establishments where access to a phone is not readily available. We may be a business, but we are a private one, and the clients who come to our establishment come for that reason. Sometimes, people don't want to be reached."

I watched the exchange through the one-way mirror. "He's smooth," I said to Grissom, staring straight forward. From the corner of my eye, I saw Grissom nod.

"We think your father never put a phone line in because he didn't want the line to be tapped," Brass said.

Vito Fava smirked. "I wouldn't know about that. It was before I became involved in running the club."

"You and he worked for the same mobster, Ricardo Ajala, a man who was once a big time boss back in Kansas City. That wasn't a reason to keep the phone line out?"

"I wasn't aware the mafia had any interests left in Vegas, Captain Brass."

"Just restaurants and clubs like _Ric's._" Brass lifted a hand and rubbed it across his mouth. "Sure they lost their interests in the casinos, but they had the full pot back when Ajala opened up the joint and your father managed it, without installing a line."

"It looks suspicious," Catherine stated, "you not putting in a phone line either."

Fava shrugged. "There is nothing I can do about that, Miss Willows, but I really hadn't given it any thought. I wanted to keep the place private."

"There's something else that looks a little suspicious…" Catherine opened up the file. She pulled out a sheet of paper and slid it across the table. Fava picked it up and glanced at it. "What's this?"

"These are your financial records. We had them pulled."

"Alright." He paused for a moment. "Why?"

"Standard procedure."

Fava nodded. He didn't look very concerned. "What do my financials have to do with Camille's death?"

"Normally, we look at financials to see if we can find motive."

"But I have no financial motive."

Catherine leaned forward. "No, it doesn't appear that you do, unless you got tired of spending all that money on her. You did pay her rent every month."

"It's part of her salary."

Catherine shook her head. "It's part of being a kept woman."

Fava shook his head. "Camille would never let herself be kept. I offered to pay her rent. The cost is well within my means."

"Oh, I know," Catherine stated. "You're quite well off.

Vito Fava shrugged.

"You followed in your father's footsteps. You used to be the manager of the club, for the Ajala family, but four years ago, you and a partner, a cousin of yours from out in the Midwest, bought out the club. You own 51% of the place, and your partner, 49%. You still run the club, manage the business, so why bring in your cousin? Did you decide to cut a member of your family in on a good thing, or did you need financial backing for the sale?"

"Something like that."

"The Ajala family put up a hefty price for the joint?" Brass asked.

"They gave me a good deal."

"So what was with the partner?"

Fava lifted a paw and rubbed it over his chin. "The place wasn't making much money back then, so neither was I. I wanted to change a few things, but I didn't have the Ajala family's backing. If Ricardo Ajala had still been alive, he would have given me the okay, but his daughters, who shared ownership between them, didn't want me changing what they viewed as their father's legacy, or rather, they didn't want to put up the money to do so, their father's legacy being the excuse. They did like the thought of making some good dough off the place though, so they offered to sell out."

"And they gave you a good deal?"

"They did put up a hefty price tag at first, but their mother, Anita, who was always like a mother to me and who the Heavens will smile upon, pointed out the clause in their father's will, that should they choose to sell out, the offer first must be to me, and at a price agreed upon by Ricardo Ajala and my father. Anita didn't want her daughters getting greedy, not at the expense of me, almost a son to her, so she made sure I was aware of that clause. If Ajala's daughters wanted to see any money, they had to honor the will and sell out to me. That was how I got the price I got. Unfortunately, I hadn't been bringing in a lot of money back then. Between the purchase of the club and the upgrades, I needed a little financial help. My cousin offered to back me without interfering. I took 51% of the shares to ensure I maintained control."

"Certainly seems like a mob joint - local boy running the show, getting backing from 'the family' out in the Midwest. And to do it so generously following a number of lean years coming from the club that you managed. Your cousin is either very generous or he had some inside information and was expecting some pretty good returns."

"He trusted me the way Ricardo Ajala trusted my father."

Brass let out a scoff. "To make some changes and get the business rolling again. It doesn't look like you changed too much in the place."

"The changes were subtle, but effective."

Catherine began to leaf through the file. "They must have been. You seem to be doing very well for a private club now. It's hard to believe these figures come from such a small, exclusive establishment, especially when you're paying a staff to entertain an empty house."

Vito Fava's eyes steeled. He stared across at Catherine. Catherine leaned forward. "And personally you must be doing very well if you can afford that private jet."

My lips curled up into a smile. I watched the scene through the one-way with growing interest.

Fava pushed the sheet with his financials back across the table. "My father left me some money."

"Must have been quite a windfall. I'm curious as to why it wasn't enough to purchase the club."

"I'd already put the money into a number of investments. The jet was an indulgence I purchased before giving thought to buying out the interests in the club."

"And when you wanted to buy out _Ric's, _you decided to keep the jet and add a silent partner. You must have been really attached to that jet."

Catherine and Brass watched Fava. Fava's only move was to begin exchanging whispers with his mouthpiece. I looked at him in his expensive, tailored suit, with his designer watch and a pink slip to his private jet tucked away somewhere. He was very well off for someone spending loads of dough on his girls and habitually hosting an empty joint. "We're missing something."

Grissom nodded. "But what?"

Whatever it was, I had a hunch it was down at the club. "_I don't know_," I said. I turned and looked at Grissom. "_But this thing is giving me the itch. I'm going to find out_."_1 _

Grissom looked at me, his eyes narrowing. He cocked his head to the side and smiled. A small titter escaped through the smile. _"The Thin Man_," he said.

I looked at him. "Yeah." I'd figured he might have read the book, being Grissom and all, but the line was only in the movie and I hadn't expected him to recognize it. I don't know why I would have figured any different though. It was Grissom after all, and he could pull quotes from anything, even obscure lines in seventy year old movies. Besides, if I had to figure what kind of movie he'd be into, the classics would probably top the list. I shook my head. Apparently there was no end to the mystery that was Grissom. "You've seen it," I said.

"Yeah," he said. "It's one of my favorites." His head craned even more to the side and he looked a bit pensive for a moment. "You know, I used to have a bit of a crush on Myrna Loy."

Huh. Him and apparently everybody else with any taste, I thought. Myrna Loy. I shook my head some more.

"You want to head back to the club?" Grissom asked.

I nodded. "I think it needs another look."

"Let's go, then. Catherine can finish the interrogation without us watching from the observation room." Grissom's phone vibrated and he opened it up, reading the text. I raised a brow. "Sara," he said.

Grissom held the phone up, reading off from it. "The only prints on the baggies of cocaine you guys got off Harry Montoya were Montoya's and a drug dealer named Nick Hackett. His prints were in the system. Sofia is bringing him in, but we've got a pretty solid case against Montoya for possession."

Grissom's fingers worked at the small keys of his cell phone, sending off a reply. His phone buzzed again. He read another text and pocketed the phone. "So Dashiell, are you ready to go? Sara's going to meet us at the club."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **_1_: Another quote from the film, _The Thin Man._


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

The stifling hot day had made way for a warm evening. There was still a hint of daylight in the air. The alley leading towards the entrance to _Ric's _was backlit by the lights of the downtown casinos. While the alley didn't have the glow of the night of Camille Vanasse's murder, between the fading daylight and the neon of the downtown joints, the alley became a contrast of light and shadow.

We were able to pull up right beside the back alley doorway. The lights of the Denali shone on the yellow crime scene tape running cross-ways across the door. Grissom parked the vehicle and after staring forward at the bright yellow tape for a moment, we exited.

I pulled back the yellow tape and waited for Grissom to step in front of me before replacing the tape. I followed him through the dark hallway to the other entrance, no longer guarded by the blonde Bruno, Calvin Hellman. Grissom pushed open the door. With only a light coming in from the doorway and no windows, the lounge smoldered with the pink print powder we'd used to process the room. Grissom reached over to hit the lights and as they flashed on, so flashed the smoldering pink powder. Then, the room was lit and the powder became a blush against the dark cherry wood of the bar and tables. The crimson red velvet and velour upholstery of the furniture clashed against the blush of the print powder. I watched Grissom scan his eyes around the room. "Why don't you begin here? I'll start in the dressing room."

I nodded, watching Grissom move through the maze of circular tables towards the gaming room. When he disappeared from sight, I cast my glance around the room.

I was on the floor with my flashlight, carefully going over each floorboard when I was interrupted by the entrance of a leggy brunette. She stood over me, looking down. I glanced up to see her wearing an appealing smirk. Her eyes were shining. "Sara."

"Hey Greggo, what are you looking for?"

I shrugged. There had been a bit of a theory playing around in my brain. I wanted to see if it would follow. "I was thinking of the Cal Neva Lodge up in Tahoe and the secret network of tunnels that ran underneath."

Sara crouched down beside me. "You think there could be something underneath here?"

I shrugged again. "Most of the casinos have their vaults beneath the casino."

"But _Ric's_ isn't a casino."

"No, but it has a flow of cash that needs to be kept somewhere, and it was a meet joint for a bunch of goodfellas running the skim in their casinos back in the day. It would also explain why all those birds were able to fly the coop when the joint got raided."

"And you think this secret passageway to the vault and to the outside might be beneath the floor."

"Maybe. The joint has a double entrance, the back alley entrance, and then, after that long haul, this second one." I pointed towards the door. "It also employs a look-out. I figure, when the joint got one of its surprise raids, the lookout, seeing the law busting down the first door, gave some sort of signal. He could then try to stall the cops or g-men and give the highbinders or mob guys on the inside time to take a bunk." I looked across at Sara, at her dancing eyes and grinned. "The Cal Neva Lodge had a trap door in the showroom floor. It made an easy getaway for mobsters who were in the black book and barred from casinos. They could escape to their cabins without being caught. If this place had something like that, it would give the birds at _Ric's _a leg-up and help those birds to a quick exit."_1_

Sara's lips pursed into another charming smirk. "And you think this place could be another Cal Neva?"

I shrugged. "The Cal Neva was a casino, but this place could have shown some of the same behavior. They probably had a few birds from the black book gambling in here, and we know that they ran bets out of here. When Warrick was a runner, he ran a few from here, though he never got in the door. They had to hide money somewhere in case the joint got raided. Vegas has a large underground, so putting in some sub-level passageway might not have raised any eyebrows. At the Cal Neva, the tunnels were already there. They started out as passages for bootlegging during prohibition, but when the mob moved in, the tunnels were an opportunity to move dirty cash back and forth across the border from their skimming of profits. That lasted until Sam Giancanna was caught at the lodge. Most of the tunnels were sealed in '63."_2_

Sara stood up, her long limbs stretching beautifully as she stood. She shook her head. "But if they found out about those tunnels in '63, why wouldn't they have looked for something like that here, during all those raids?"

"Because _Ric's_ was never a casino," I said, "and it was never subject to the gaming commission. It was the birds on the gaming commission and not government men that were the downfall of the Cal Neva. The g-men investigating _Ric's_ figured some illegal gambling had to be going on, but they could never get the proof. They didn't know enough to search for passageways in the early days, and later, after discovering the tunnels at the Cal Neva, they could never do a proper search at _Ric's_ without probable cause. Bobby Kennedy's stint as Attorney General made it necessary to start doing things by the book. The g-men started needing warrants. Casey Shaw might have discovered the passageway, but his murder put the kibosh on any knowledge of that coming out. Since then, nobody has been able to conduct a proper search of the joint, until now. I thought it might be worth a look."

Sara smiled. "Why didn't you take that look the first time we were here?"

"I had to burn some leather and we didn't really know what we were looking for. We thought we might be looking for someone who might have strangled Vanasse. There was time between the 911 call and the arrival of the first responding officer for that guy to have dusted. I didn't think of looking for a passageway until now. When Grissom and I figured we had to be missing something here, I thought of the tunnels at Cal Neva. We know something has to be going on here, something Vito Fava is hiding. He's pulling in a lot of coin. We are also missing some evidence. You and Catherine couldn't find any missing evidence in the dumpsters, so I thought that they might have used the old tunnels to get rid of it."

"If the tunnels exist."

I snapped my fingers and pointed at her. "Right. We don't have anything else right now, so…"

Sara's lips turned up. "Alright then, where do you want me?"

Both of my brows arched. Sara smirked and shook her head. I let my lips curl up into a grin. "Well, Grissom is in the dressing room where Camille Vanasse's body was discovered, so you can either take another peek in the office, or give the gaming room another look."

"I guess I'll start in the gaming room."

I nodded and let my eyes trail over her as she made her way into the gaming room. When she was gone from sight, I returned to my search.

It was sometime later when I crossed the floor and was looking around the bar. Sara had processed the bar, so I knew the job had been done pretty thorough. She said it had been missing a few glasses and there were a couple of holes in the wine rack, not yet refilled, but she hadn't found anything else.

In a lot of bars and clubs, kegs are kept in another room or in a cellar or basement, with lines running up, depending on the room or where the refrigeration unit was. Sara had told me that the kegs in this joint were kept under the bar, in a long refrigeration unit. It those kegs were kept above ground, I figured there had to be a reason for it. Looking under the bar, I began to move a few things around, the draft beer dispensers, kegs, liquor dispensers and so on. My flashlight moved carefully over the area. My eyes grazing slowly, I took extra time on all the edges and figured if I wanted to take a better look, I had to move the refrigeration unit.

Standing, I disconnected all the lines, watching the old alcohol drip from the tubes. I lifted out kegs and liquor dispensers and tried to move the refrigeration unit. It was a two person job, so I stood up and stretched out. Walking around the bar, I moved to the entrance to the gaming room.

I looked in the gaming room, the room I'd first come across Lauren Perske, a knockout in her showgirl outfit, with a dangerous punch all her own, sparring like a heavyweight pug. Though there was less skin to be seen and a set of endless gams were covered from sight, the view now was just as appealing. Sara was crouched down, going over every inch of the room. I gave her the up and down. She glanced back at me and stood up. "Find something?"

I shrugged. "Maybe. Can you give me a hand?"

Sara cocked her head to the side. A small smile played over her lips. She nodded. "Yeah."

I turned back and moved behind the bar once again. Sara came around beside me. I glanced over at her. "When you processed the bar, did you wonder why they would store the kegs beneath the bar?"

Sara shrugged. "Some bars do, particularly smaller ones, like this place. It wasn't really out of place for a gin joint like this."

I nodded. The place did read more like a gin mill. "Still…"

Sara grinned. "If they aren't putting them below ground level, then something else might be down there."

I grinned in return. "Help me with the refrigeration unit?"

Between the two of us, we shifted the unit around so that we could jimmy it out of bar. I shone my flashlight in the hole and noticed a little notch in part of the wood near the edge. I tried to dig it up with my finger. "Can you pass me a knife or a flat screwdriver?"

Sara dug into my kit and pulled out a flat screwdriver. I wedged the end into the notch and lifted the wood up. There was a large hole beneath, followed by another floorboard. "This bar has a false bottom."

Sara stuck her head into the hole. Her cheek was right beside mine. Her scent drifted into my nose. Her shoulder brushed against mine as she cast her glance around. I turned to face her, to see if her expression matched mine, but she pulled out.

"There are a couple of cracks down there," she said.

I pulled my head out of the hole, took a breath and nodded. "Yeah. It could be a trapdoor, but how would they get at it?"

Sara fell back on the floor, sitting down with her legs bent before her. She stared at the bar. Her hand lifted and pushed at a strand of hair, shoving it behind her ear. "They move the bar."

I frowned, looking at the bar and then back at Sara. She gave me a look, stood up and began moving bar stools. I gave her a hand, clearing a path. Then, she moved to one end of the bar. I moved to the other. Together, we slid the bar along the floor, moving it forward. As we inched the bar over we could hear the bar scraping along the old floorboards. The wood creaked. We must have made quite a bit of noise because soon Grissom was in the room, watching us. His hand ran through his hair. He grabbed the carpet from outside the entrance and put it in front of the bar. Then we lifted one side and Grissom slid the carpet under. Angling the bar on the carpet, we slid the bar easily forward, out onto the lounge floor.

Placing the bar down, we moved around to the back. The three of us looked down. The cracks Sara and I had seen were not noticeable. Sara crouched down. Grissom crouched beside her. I kneeled and shone my flashlight on the floor. Close up, illuminated by the glow of the flashlight, we could make out a square in the floorboards that could be a trap door. Sara reached down and lifted the floorboards up. "Not exactly easy access."

"They might have moved the bar around a little since the days when people needed to make quick exits," I said.

Sara nodded. She pulled back the trapdoor and lifted it off to the side, Grissom helping her. She looked at me and grinned. "Go ahead, Greggo."

I eyed her and nodded, slipping down through the hole and finding a ladder with my foot. I climbed down a few pegs and felt my left foot hit a step. Ducking down, I crawled down the steps and found myself facing a large oak door. My hand landed on the handle and I pushed it open. The first thing I noticed was the change in the air. I'd gone from the dry Vegas heat to a cool and very moist room. The humidity had to be in the seventies.

A slight wave of warmth spread across my back. The sound of Sara's breaths filtered into my ear. She was right behind me, standing in the doorway to the cool, damp space. Shivering slightly, I reached around for a light switch and flicked on the lights. The room glowed softly as a series of low-wattage lights spread across the ceiling. My eyes adjusted to the soft glow and I stared forward. Before me sat a wine cellar, with thousands of bottles stretching across the side on a gigantic wine rack. _Ricardo's Café Italiano _indeed.

* * *

><p><em>1: (<em>From "Secrets of Sin City," <strong>Cities of the<strong>** Underworld**)__

_2: _(_From "Secrets of Sin City," **Cities of the**** Underworld**)_


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

Darkened glass glinted beneath the soft glow of light in the dimly lit corridor. Sara's breath on my neck, her hand giving me a gentle shove forward, I stepped through the door and let my eyes follow the line of seemingly endless wine bottles. This place was no gin mill. It was a wine café, the cellar so narrow, it could have only been a passageway before.

"This is a serious cellar," Grissom said from behind me. I turned around. Grissom was looking at a thermometer fastened to the wall. "55°s," he said, "humidity at 78%, low wattage, surface level lighting, cherry wood wine racks, perfect conditions for storing wine."

I jerked a nod and cast my glance around. The cellar was long and narrow. Space to stroll by the racks was tight. The dark green of the wine bottles looked almost black in the dim light of the tunnel. The flash of Sara's camera periodically lit sections of bottles, displaying the dark green glint.

I watched as Sara let her camera drop to her side and lifted her delicate fingers to the bottles, carefully lifting one out. Barely visible dust particles floated through the air as the bottle was removed from the rack, lighting up only when drifting past the light. Sara held the bottle up before her, her gaze fixed on the label. She brushed at the dust with her fingers, sending more dust particles floating around the tunnel. I glanced at the label over her shoulder. It was an Italian label. "I don't recognize it," I said.

Italy produces more wine than any other country, so there had to be thousands of labels I'd never set eyes on. Not recognizing one would not have come as a big surprise, but, fancying myself as a bit of a wine enthusiast, I'd been known to sip a glass or two of merlot and I never forgot a label. If I'd seen it before, particularly earlier, while working this case, I would have remembered it. It wasn't in the wine rack upstairs.

"I recognize it," Sara said, and for a moment I wondered if it was in the wine rack behind the bar and I'd missed it when I'd taken a peek." Sara twisted the bottle in her grasp. "Catherine found an uncorked bottle in the victim's purse. She thought she recognized it as a bottle that Sam has on display."

Grissom frowned. Sara replaced the bottle and pulled out another. "Same label," she said.

I cocked an eyebrow. Grissom's eyes narrowed even more. He pulled out another bottle and twisted it so that he could read the label. "It's the same label again," he said.

"This label isn't in the wine rack upstairs," Sara said, confirming my earlier observation.

Slowly, we moved along the narrow cellar, plucking out bottles and finding the same label over and over. Sara's camera flashed as she took pictures of each section and each bottle we pulled. Halfway down the corridor, Grissom's fingers lifted another bottle. "Same label, but this one is a different vintage." He held up the bottle for us. The vintage was 2001. We'd been pulling 2000's up to that point.

There was a flash from Sara's camera as she snapped a photo of the bottle. We continued down slowly, randomly lifting bottles and pulling out more 2001's. The row ended and the passageway took a sharp turn. We moved around the corner and came across more bottles stretching out as far as our gazes could take us.

"This has to be an old tunnel system," I said.

Grissom nodded. He glanced around the section of passage. I fingered a bottle. "2002," I said. Sara snapped a photo.

Moving slowly, I crept along the tunnel, Sara and Grissom following close behind, intermittently pulling bottles from the rack. They were all the 2002 vintage of the same label.

Towards the middle, the rack emptied out. It was bare along the rest of the passage. Then, the tunnel ended, sealed off by brick and concrete, a wall no more than a few years old. In front of the wall, cases upon cases were stacked a few feet high. More cases were stacked along the wall. I looked at all of the cases and let my eyes follow the line of bottles all the way back along the corridor. "This was how the birds at _Ric's_ used to lam off. Behind that wall is probably a tunnel to a basement in some other building. They converted the tunnel into a cellar and sealed off the rest of the passage."

Sara's camera flashed as she took a photo of the wall. I ranked my eyes over the passage, looking past Sara and Grissom to the wine racks lining the narrow way. "I wonder why they kept in the tunnels rather than opening the area up for their cellar. There isn't any room for tasting in this cellar."

Grissom cocked his head slightly. "Maybe they were worried about messing with the support structure." I nodded. The tunnels seemed to serve as a pretty successful wine cellar all their own.

Sara's camera continued to flash as she aimed her lens at all of the cases stacked all over the end of the corridor. One case had already been pried open. I reached in and pulled out a bottle. "2003," I said.

Grissom glanced behind him at the empty places on the rack and took the bottle from me. "The latest vintage?"

Sara snapped a photo. She squeezed past me, brushing against me in the tight space. She aimed her lens at the open case. I watched her as she leaned forward, her lines stretching out in the soft glow of the cellar. Pausing in her photos, she reached forward, behind the cases and pulled out a couple of dirty wine glasses, holding them by the base of their stems. She looked back at me. I grinned. "_Grandma, what large glasses you have_,"_1_ I said, using a Nick Charles quote from _The Thin Man_.

Sara smirked and shook her head. She looked past me, to Grissom. "Greg thinks he's Dashiell Hammett."

Grissom's reply came out level. "I've noticed."

I pulled a bag from my vest pocket and opened it up for Sara. She slipped the wine glasses inside. I sealed the bag and set it off to the side. "What do you want to bet that one of these glasses helped Camille Vanasse to her fatal dose?"

"Wine glasses hidden way back here? Sucker's bet," Sara said. Her camera flashed again. Slowly, her hand disappeared behind the stack of cases and reappeared holding an empty wine bottle. "Think this is the bottle it came from?" She set the bottle on a stack of cases and flashed another photo. Her brow puckered into a frown. "This is a Bordeaux," she said.

I lifted the bottle and stared at it before placing it in the bag. "A Bordeaux in a cellar full of only one make of wine and none of that make in the wine rack upstairs?"

The lines on Grissom's brow drew sharper. "Any more treasures back there?" I asked.

Sara reached down and came back with a corkscrew, cork and a syringe. She set them on a stack of cases.

"A syringe?" I asked. "Doc Robbins never found any puncture marks on our vic."

Sara lifted the cork and the syringe, holding them up side by side. The needle on the syringe was unusually long. Looking at them side by side, Sara arched a brow. She bagged the items. "That's everything back there."

"Greg," Grissom looked at me, "can you take all this back to the lab and see if any of it will sing for us?"

I jerked a nod.

"Sara, can you do a little background research on this wine? Why is this cellar full of it? Why did the victim have a bottle of it in her purse? See what you can find out about it."

Sara nodded. As we crawled back along the path, Sara lifted a bottle of each vintage to take back to the lab. When we reached the door, she looked back at the long row of racks. "The vintages start at 2000," she said.

Grissom's brow narrowed. He climbed out of the hole, taking the evidence from us. Sara followed me out, flicking off the light and shutting the heavy oak door behind her.

Inside the lounge, Sara boxed up the wine from the wine rack behind the bar, double checking to make sure our wine label wasn't amongst the labels found on that rack. Grissom did an approximate measure of the space behind the bar it his arms. He looked down at the floor, kneeling beside the edge of the bar. He fingered a couple of the scratches and looked up at us. "I think that this is where the bar is normally placed. That would have given them easy access to the trap door behind the bar. They probably moved the bar back to conceal the entrance after the 911 call was made, not wanting us to get a look at the trap door."

Sara bent down beside him, studying the floor. She lifted her gaze up to Grissom's and smiled. "I think you're right." She took some photos, leaning in close to the floor to do so. Grissom leaned over and watched her. Then, he stood up. "Greg, Sara, do you want to head back to the lab? I'll finish up taking a look around here. I want to have another look at Vito Fava's office."

I nodded, anxious to see if the evidence would sing. Carrying bags of evidence in one hand and my kit in the other, I followed Sara out to her vehicle. Night had arrived while we'd been searching through the secret passage turned wine cellar. Sara stepped into the driver's seat and eased the vehicle out of the alley. My gaze was fixed on the window as Sara turned onto a thriving Fremont Street. As we crawled along the street, I could feel the pulse of downtown Las Vegas. Under darkness, Glitter Gulch was all lit up.

* * *

><p><em>1:<em> Quote from the film, _The Thin Man_


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25**

I could feel Sara on my heels as I wound through the busy halls of the lab. Sara was helping me carry our evidence to the layout room, her wine labels mixed in amongst all the evidence I had to process. Setting one box down on the layout table, Sara grabbed four bottles of wine before she and I separated. I took out the rest of the evidence and laid it out, each piece still in its individual evidence bag. Then, I took a step back and stared at it for awhile.

I was still staring at the evidence when Catherine strolled into the layout room. She glanced around the table, arching a brow. "You found all this?"

I jerked a nod.

"Great work," Catherine said. She fingered the bag with the syringe in it. "I noticed that Sara has set herself up in front of a computer."

"Yeah," I said, pulling on a thin pair of plastic gloves. "She's researching a wine, Italian label, Tuscany, something called Nettare di Mattare. We didn't recognize the label, but Sara said that you'd found a bottle of the same wine in our dead torcher's purse and you'd thought you'd recognized it."

My eyes were on Catherine, waiting for her to respond. She frowned. "Nettare di Mattare?"

I nodded.

Catherine jerked a slight nod. "Yeah, it looked like a bottle Sam had on display. I remember looking at it and wondering why Sam would put a wine on display that I'd never heard of. It wasn't your normally trophy case bottle. The bottle was a 2000. The one I'd pulled from Camille Vanasse's purse was a 2003."

"Did you process it?"

Catherine cocked her head to the side. "Sure, but it was uncorked. It just looked like she had it in her bag to take home."

"Any prints?"

Catherine's brow pinched inward. Her eyes were looking left in recollection. "Vanasse, Fava, and the bartender, Johnny Mathers, but nobody else. There were a few smudges, unusable."

I jerked a nod. Catherine gave me the up and down. "Why is Sara researching the wine?"

My eyes ranked over Catherine. She was watching me, waiting for an answer, still left in the dark as to what we'd found. I leaned one elbow on the layout table and looked at her. "We found shelves and cases of the stuff in a cellar below _Ric's._"

Catherine watched me. Her blue eyes glinted in the light of the room. "Really?"

My mouth twisted up into a grin. I jerked a nod. "Maybe a thousand bottles of the juice, the vintages from 2000 to 2003."

"The same label?"

"The very same." I stood back up under Catherine's stare and let off a shrug. The presence of the wine and what it meant to our case was still as much a mystery to me as Catherine. I gave her the eyeball. "So, how did the rest of the interrogation go?"

Catherine's brow wrinkled in a frown. "Not well. Brass and I tried to corner Vito Fava with his far-fetched financials, but Fava managed to ease his way out of that corner."

My eyes narrowed slightly. I thought about what I'd witnessed from the observation room. My narrowed eyes watched Catherine. "So you and Fava go back?"

Catherine let out a snort. "Not really. His dad and Sam used to pal around a bit. I used to see him around."

"But you've never been to the club?"

Catherine shook her head. "Not until last Thursday, Greg. Hanging out with Sam in back alley clubs was never my scene."

I watched her for a moment and nodded. Catherine was a woman who liked to be where the action was. I wasn't even sure why I'd bothered to grill her on that again. She'd given me a pretty adamant answer earlier and Catherine was known for her brutal honesty about nearly everything, her mixed-up past included. She could give a guy the runaround for awhile, but she was one broad who was almost always on the level. I gave her the up and down and cocked my head to the side, a slight smirk on my lips. "So, are you going to give a guy a hand?"

Catherine smiled. "What are we doing?"

"Prints, DNA, tox, and then sending this stuff off to trace."

"You swab for DNA and I'll print?"

I nodded. We began working, setting up an easy rhythm. I pulled a piece of evidence, swabbed it for DNA and handed it off to Catherine to print.

Pulling the syringe, I swabbed for DNA, took a sample for tox and handed it off to Catherine, watching as she carefully printed the small piece of evidence, gently wrapping tape around the slender tube. Peeling back the tape off the small surface, she lifted an almost perfect print.

Catherine was a wonder with prints. Powder floated upon the surface of every piece of evidence she printed as though it knew where it needed to land. Her delicate fingers lifted prints with an elegance only a woman could aspire to. I enjoyed watching Catherine print, almost as much as I enjoyed watching Sara. I might give Catherine the slight advantage, but watching Sara's hands…

I lost myself in the rest of the job. Soon, we were finished. I took back the empty bottle of Bordeaux and tipped it upside down until a trickle of wine dripped out. There were a few more drops inside, but that small sample would be enough to do. Swabbing it for tox, I took the swab and placed it next to the swab I'd taken from the interior of the syringe. Catherine gathered up the little envelopes of swabs and prints. "I'll drop these off while you take this stuff to trace."

I frowned. Dropping off evidence to trace was at the very top of the few things I didn't like about this job. It was a job I'm sure all of us would pass onto someone else if the opportunity presented itself. I looked at Catherine and realized I was stuck with it. Catherine's raised brow told me that asking for a switch would be a mistake I might not want to make. I felt the disappointment land on my shoulders, the weight of it heavy. Catherine got to stop by the print lab and drop off prints with Mandy, swing by tox and drop off samples with Henry, and then move onto DNA, where Wendy was always something to look at. Meanwhile, I was the sucker that had to hit trace and put up with the unending trap of David Hodges.

Hodges, the trace tech, was a piece of work. Self absorbed might be a more accurate description. Hodges worshiped the Holy Trinity and I didn't mean the religious one. It wasn't Grissom's trinity of evidence either. No, Hodges's trinity was the three people he thought should be sainted, his mother, Grissom and himself. Hodges was daffy over himself and he was daffy over Grissom. He could talk about girlfriends and being into women, but if he had to choose one person to be stuck on a deserted island with, his choice would be our boss. If Grissom was around, Hodges puffed up like a peacock, showing off his colors. If Grissom wasn't around, Hodges still puffed up like a peacock, but it was more of a pride thing. He believe that he and Grissom drank from the same cup, that he was closer to Grissom than any of the rest of us, even closer to Grissom than Catherine, who was Grissom's right hand. He talked down to the rest of us, like we were a bunch of dumb mugs and I was at the bottom, all because I'd traded the crime lab for the neon streets. Catherine, Warrick, Nick and Sara all had a way of putting Hodges in his place, and they'd even grown to not mind him so much, but I'd yet to accomplish either of that. Maybe with time, but for now, he was the gee who was about to tout himself a hero and act as if he was the case breaker, all because I was about to bring him a piece of evidence to process. Letting out a bit of a sigh, I boxed up the evidence and headed to trace.

I looked inside the trace lab to see Hodges playing the "Six Million Dollar Man" board game all by himself. He looked like he was hard at work, playing that vintage board game, but it wasn't a real surprise coming from Hodges. He liked those old games. Over a year ago, he'd roped me into a "Dukes of Hazzard" game. For someone who liked to sing him significance, Hodges also liked to shirk the work. Years ago, I worked trace and I knew for a fact that Hodges was taking a little longer to process things than needed.

I set down the box of evidence, letting the box drop the last couple of inches so that it would make a loud thud as it landed. Hodges's eyes snapped to me. I gave him the eyeball. "I need you to pull trace."

Hodges smirked. He stood up. "Is it important, or did they just leave you with the scraps?"

I let the remark slide. "You tell me."

"Are you looking for me to break your case?"

"Don't flatter yourself," I said. "Just take a look and see what you can give me. Start with the cork."

Hodges pulled out the cork. "You want to know what this is composed of?"

I shrugged. "If it's relevant. I want you to see if you can match it to the bottle."

"If there is trace of the cork in the bottle, which there often is, I can. I could also try to match the wine from the cork, if the bottle hasn't been rinsed out. Otherwise, I would need to compare the cork to an identical bottle of the same vintage."

"There's wine left in the bottle, so if you can't find any trace of cork, use that."

Hodges nodded. He lifted the cork up before his face and studied it. He took a sniff, frowned, and then sniffed again. "Is this from a homicide?"

I jerked a nod.

"What did your victim die of?"

I frowned. "Heroin overdose."

"You should get an expanded tox panel."

My head angled sideways. "Why?" I asked.

Hodges handed me the cork. "Do you smell that?"

I took a sniff. "All I can smell is oxidized wine." I handed the cork back to him and watched as he took another sniff. He shook his head. "No, it's not wine. It's kind of a bitter almond scent."

"Let me see that." I grabbed the cork back and took a long, deep sniff. "I don't smell it."

"That's because you don't have the nose." Hodges tapped the side of his schnozzle with his index finger.

I scoffed. It was right on Hodges's line to believe his nose was superior. What made his beezer any better? "Yeah," I said, "what makes your nose so special?"

Hodges looked at me. A self-satisfied smirk was playing at his lips. "It can detect cyanide."

If he'd given me any other line, I would think he was slinging a story, one of the fictitious kind. Years of working in the lab gave me pause. I knew that certain people had a genetic disposition that enabled them to smell cyanide. I shook my head. Hodges just had to be one of them.

Taking the cork from him, I held it in the air. "Nevada gas?"

Hodges jerked a nod. "If it was in the cork though, then it is probably liquid form." He gave me the eyeball. "Who makes a cork with cyanide?"

"Nobody." I placed the cork on a tray and dug out the baggie with the syringe in it, pulling out the syringe. I handed it to Hodges. "Smell this."

He frowned. "Why?"

"Pretend I'm Grissom and humor me."

Hodges lifted the syringe, leaned forward and took a good, dramatic whiff. "Cyanide."

"Confirm it," I said, plopping down the cork before him. Before he could say anything, I turned out of the lab and headed off to tox. I was about to pile more onto the already full plate of Henry Andrews. There were samples to test for cyanide on top of heroin now, but an expanded tox panel was priority.


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26**

I made my way through the halls with the stride of a man who had business on the brain, business of the urgent kind. I had left Hodges with the cork and the syringe, but Henry was the toxicology tech and I wanted him to test the evidence Catherine had left with him against Hodges's nose for poison, after the expanded tox panel.

Henry's plate was full with all the stuff we'd been piling on for him and he looked as though he was feeling a little overwhelmed. He spun around in the lab, his mouth moving quickly as he yammered on about not having any results for us yet. When I told him I wasn't after results, but wanted him to run an expanded tox panel and check for cyanide, he stopped in his tracks. "Forget everything else for now," I said, "this is priority."

Henry jerked a slow nod, his eyes watching me. "What about Catherine…"

He looked a little afraid as he said Catherine's name. I could understand it. Between her beauty and her brains and the way she could let a guy know how things stood, Catherine could be a little intimidating. She almost always got her results before anyone else, except for Grissom. Henry was already a bit of a nervous gee. I smirked. "She'll want this first. Check everything she just brought in right after and test it for cyanide as well as any opiates."

Henry jerked another nod, looking a little unsure. "On the square," I said, "Catherine will want this first." Henry's next nod had a little more gumption.

After giving Henry the rumble, I decided to search out Sara and see if she was getting anywhere on the wine. I strolled through the halls, until I spotted her, hunkered down in front of a computer. She was singing under her breath in her funny, husky little lilt. I decided to stop, watch and listen for awhile, smiling as Sara, so focused on the computer, continued on without notice. After minutes of just watching, I began to whistle, joining in. Sara's head shot up to mine. A faint blush painted her cheeks. She gave me the eye. "Don't say anything."

"Don't stop on my account."

"Too late," she said, "I've already stopped."

I took a step inside, smiled and gave her a wink. "You can sing for me anytime."

Sara smirked. "That was not for you." She paused and the smirk melted from her face. "It's…something I tend to do when I get really focused. I don't even notice."

"I sure did."

Sara let out a soft snort. I moved to her side, standing over her. "Get anything on the wine yet?"

She sighed and shook her head. Her fingers lifted to rub at her eyes. "Not yet. There have been a few mentions of it, but nothing that gives up anything about it. How are things coming on your end?"

I looked down at Sara and smirked. "I've asked Henry to do an expanded tox panel."

Sara's brow wrinkled inward. Her hand stilled over the mouse. She looked up at me. "An expanded tox panel? What are you looking for?"

"Cyanide."

Sara's eyes grew wide. "Cyanide? What made you decide to look for that?"

"Hodges's nose," I said, "apparently it's gifted."

Sara shook her head and laughed. I looked down at her, watching her expression. "You knew," I said.

She nodded. "Yeah. Didn't you? I found that out last year when we were working that double homicide in the College Dorm. When we were looking for what may have caused the bodies to turn pink, Doc Robbins had Hodges come into the morgue to take a sniff of the stomach contents."

"You didn't tell me?"

"I think you were busy with the exploding toilet and tox confirmed that there was no presence of cyanide in either victim. Telling you about Hodges sniffing the stomach contents must have slipped my mind."

I shook my head. "It had to be Hodges."

Sara laughed. "I had the exact same thought." She swiveled in her chair, facing me. "Still, if it gets us closer to finding the truth, we might as well make use of it."

"You sound like Grissom," I said.

Sara smirked. "So what was Hodges sniffing when he detected the cyanide?"

"The cork."

Sara arched a brow. I pulled up a chair and sat down beside her. "I have a theory," I said.

Sara angled her head sideways. She was watching me, waiting.

"We know that whoever killed Vanasse was trying to make it look like an overdose, right?" Sara nodded. "Well, I think that whoever did it wasn't sure if he or she was giving Vanasse enough H to pop the pump. I think our killer used the syringe to inject the heroin into the bottle instead of slipping it in her drink. That diluted the amount of heroin Vanasse could get in a drink. Vanasse was given a Mickey Finn, but it was the whole bottle and not just a glass."

I paused. Sara's eyes were focused on me. "Keep going," she said.

"Our killer doesn't know how much is needed to knock off Vanasse, so he or she decides on a little insurance – cyanide. It's fast, it's lethal, and it had the added insurance of being combined with an excess of heroin. Our killer injects it into Vanasse's favorite bottle, maybe because he or she doesn't think Vanasse would trust taking an already poured glass or maybe because Vanasse is French and likes to see the wine uncorked herself, who knows. Vanasse takes the drink and winds up in a sleeper car, headed back to France in a Chicago overcoat."

Sara's mouth twisted up into a little smirk. She shook her head. "It was the bottle and not the glass."

I jerked a nod. "You were thinking the same thing when you held up the cork against the syringe," I said.

"I wondered about it, but I wasn't sure the theory would work. I didn't know if the killer could have injected enough heroin into a full bottle of wine to cause an addict to overdose."

"The killer was probably thinking the same thing. Enter the cyanide. The levels in Vanasse's blood weren't way over the top. We'd figured they could potentially be high enough to kill her. The killer probably didn't want to take that chance."

"So we just have to confirm it."

I smiled. "Henry and Hodges are doing that as we speak."

Sara's mouth grew into a wide grin. "Great work, Greg."

"It gets even better," I said. Sara arched a brow and looked over at me. I looked back at her, letting my eyes wander over her face, the slight freckling on her cheeks from the hot summer days and the waiting look in her coffee colored eyes. "Catherine several prints off of the bottle of wine. She also lifted a nice, clean little print from off the syringe. It's only a partial, but it's a good one and it should be enough to get a match."

Sara nodded. "We have several prints for comparison."

I jerked a nod. "If Mandy matches the print, we'll know who sang our canary her last lullaby."


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27**

A nice little partial off of a syringe was a swell lead to have if we were finally going to figure out who sent our canary into the big sleep, but I still wasn't sure where we stood overall in the investigation. Business was good at _Ric's_, maybe a little too good with all the dough Fava was rolling in without many customers. And there was the wine. The cellar had been stocked with more bottles of wine than a liquor store, and all one brand. Something was up and I wasn't sure if it was connected to Camille Vanasse's death or not. Was it motive for murder, or was Vanasse's murder just the result of some lover's spat?

I found myself wondering what the deal was with the wine. It was quite the stockpile and I was sure it had something to do with the case. I racked my brain, trying to think of what may be special about the wine. In Hitchcock's film, _Notorious_, the characters had been interested in a stock of wine in a cellar too, only it was the bottles and the minerals in the bottles and not the wine itself. Was Fava using _Ric's _to smuggle minerals?

Perhaps it was a caper. "Maybe the wine is stolen, high end stuff, disguised under fake labels."

Sara arched a brow. I looked at her and shrugged. "During World War II, when the Germans occupied France, the shrewd French used to disguise their best wines as table wines to keep it out of German hands. They took the stuff from their worst vintages, years when there was a drought, or too much rain, swill they couldn't sell, and labeled it as the expensive, extravagant wines, handing it off to the Germans as France's finest. When the country was liberated and French soldiers moved onto Bavaria and Hitler's Eagle's Nest retreat, along with some of the finest wines the German's were able to pillage, they found a large quantity of purposely mislabeled wine, the junk they couldn't sell. Meanwhile, back in their caves, they still had those highly coveted bottles the Germans had been after labeled as common table wine."_1_

A smirk formed on Sara's lips. "You think Fava is moving rare wines?"

I shrugged and winked at Sara. "We could always test the wine; see if the bottles taste the same."

Sara's look turned playful. "And hope the bottles haven't been injected with cyanide? Are you going to have Hodges sniff them first?"

A grin pulled at my lips. Sara laughed and shook her head. "Do you really trust his nose?"

"Anyone else, maybe, but Hodges?" I shook my head, thinking about how Hodges liked to grandstand. "Not at all."

Sara chuckled again. Then she looked up at me. "That's a lot of stolen wine to be moving and I'm sure that more than a few people would notice it missing. I'm not sure your theory is very sound."

I thought about it and realized she was right. All the bottles looked similar to the point of being identical. Besides, what collector wanted to buy a rare wine with a fake label? I jerked a nod. Whatever the mystery of the cellar was, Sara would find out. She was still looking into the wine. I decided to leave her to it and get back to work. There were results to hunt down.

I went off in search of Catherine, wondering if anything had turned up. I didn't put it past Catherine to pace the print lab while Mandy was running the results. Catherine wasn't in the print lab, though. Mandy was busy running prints. She glanced up at me with a gaze that told me not to even bother to ask for anything. I decided it was best not to try. I knew from experience not to cross a woman in the state she was in. I continued to search for Catherine.

I checked Catherine's office and then the break room, but she wasn't in either. I glanced in all the labs, but I only saw lab techs, busy at work. I asked Judy in reception if she'd seen Catherine and was told Catherine had stepped outside. I exited the building and stepped out into a wave of heat. The sun was burning down, baking the mean streets of Las Vegas. A guy could melt in heat like that, but after spending the last couple hours in the air conditioned building, a few minutes of sun on the skin felt good. Catherine wasn't in sight, but instead of looking further, I leaned against the building and closed my eyes. Even though our recent find had breathed new life into the investigation and excitement in me, I was tired. The heat was lulling me to sleep. The baking sun had lines running across my eyelids, looking like the partial Catherine had pulled from the syringe. The partial. Eyes still closed, I let my lips turn up into a grin. When I'd left Sara with the revelation of the partial, I'd been left with the image of her bright, wide smile. The image of that smile was swimming before me now, lingering in my mind. I realized that I could have sat there beside her and bumped gums with her all day but she'd had work to get back to, and so did I. It was time I got back to it.

I went back inside and headed for the break room, thinking it would be a good place to wait while Catherine turned back up. She was already in the break room when I got back there, nursing a cup of joe. She looked up at me as I entered. I frowned. "I've been looking for you," I said.

Catherine shrugged. "Lindsay swung by here. I went out to meet her."

"Lindsay was here?"

"Yeah," Catherine let out a harsh little laugh. "She wanted spending money. My mom is taking her to Tahoe."

I cocked my head to the side and waited.

"With Sam," Catherine finished.

I felt a small grin tug at my lips. Catherine had a bipolar relationship with her father and apparently it was more on the low side right now. Maybe it had something to do with his prints turning up at _Ric's. _"Any results?" I asked.

"Something interesting on the prints Grissom got me to track down. Jack Archer's prints were matched to prints in both the gaming room and the bar."

"So the Commissioner wasn't just there playing poker. He spent some time in the same location as some wrong gees." Wrong gees like Bernard Leonarduzi, or an old dropper like Sal Marchiano. Interesting didn't begin to cover that.

Catherine shook her head. "He knocked back a couple of drinks in that bar."

"Any alibi for the night Camille Vanasse was put on ice?"

Catherine's lips turned up into a slight smirk. "Says he was at home with his wife."

"She won't testify against him."

"No, and we can't put him at _Ric's _either."

I moved to the coffee pot and looked at the swill inside. It looked like thick, brown poison, but I grabbed a mug and filled it anyways. I sipped slowly, choking back the joe. "What about the prints on the bottle of Bordeaux? Or the syringe?"

Catherine shook her head. "Mandy wasn't in her lab when I went to drop off prints. She was in here, taking her first break of her shift. She's looking a bit overwrought."

I nodded. I'd seen it when I'd peeked into the print lab, looking for Catherine. "Henry, too," I said.

Catherine jerked a nod. "Well, Mandy took the prints right back to the print lab, but she kicked me out."

A grin tugged at the corner of my lips. Mandy had spunk. I never would have tried to kick Catherine out back when I was a lab tech, even on my worst day.

"She'll page as soon as the results come in," Catherine finished.

I jerked a nod. It was time to play more of the waiting game. I set my coffee down on the break room table and moved to the fridge, pulling out my brown bag. I moved back to the break room table and sat down. The paper crinkled in my hand as I opened the bag. There was almost nothing in it, a banana and a squished up pb&j sandwich. I looked at it. "Should we order in?"

Catherine nodded. "I was thinking about that."

"Thinking about what?" Grissom asked from the doorway.

My glance shot to him. Catherine's did as well. "Ordering in breakfast," she said.

Grissom nodded. "Good idea. Brass is on his way over. I'll get him to swing by the deli to pick up."

Grissom pulled out his cell and we placed an order, remembering to order for Sara as well. Then, Grissom hung up the phone, poured himself a cup of brown sludge and sat down at the break room table. Catherine and I both looked at him. He arched a brow. "Did you find anything else?" Catherine asked.

Grissom nodded. "I found a few more wine glasses in the cellar, used recently. They were with an open bottle of the wine from the cellar, the 2003 vintage. They were tucked into a corner behind the rack, along with a very nice corkscrew.

"Did you get any prints or DNA off of them?"

Grissom nodded. "Prints and swabs are with their respective labs." He choked down another sip of java. "I also did a count on the cases. In total, there were twenty four cases of wine in that cellar."

I frowned and did the math in my head. "That's almost three hundred bottles. There were way more bottles of all the other vintages."

Grissom's shrugged. "Maybe it isn't all there."

"Anything in Fava's office? On his financials?"

Grissom shook his head. "I don't know yet. There are a few things that need looking into. Brass is going to get to it when he gets here." Grissom looked across at us. "What about here? Any results yet?"

I shook my head. "Still waiting. Things are looking up though."

We gave Grissom the run down on the prints we'd lifted, and the print Mandy had matched from the bar to Commissioner Jack Archer. I gave them the lay on the possible presence of cyanide, watching as they both arched a brow.

"So we just need to find out who put the cyanide into Camille Vanasse's wine."

Catherine looked at Grissom. "If Mandy can match the partial, the print will tell us that." Catherine's gaze shifted to me. "But poisoning is passive. Early money has to be on Lauren Perske."

I shook my head. "Not if the killer wanted it to look like an overdose." I gave them the lay on my theory.

"Greg," Catherine started, "are you sure you aren't just saying that because you're a little dopey over the showgirl?"

I shook my head again. "No, Lauren Perske is a tomato, but she's also hard boiled. She carries around danger like a pro skirt with a tube of lipstick."

Catherine spat out a sudden laugh. Grissom just looked at me. It wasn't long after, that Brass arrived, carrying in our Styrofoam containers of grub. He sat down and placed the food on the table. "Harry Montoya was charged with minor possession, but let off with a sizable fine that he already paid up."

I frowned. We hadn't been able to hold him long on that possession charge and now he was back on the street. It didn't sit well with me and I could tell it didn't sit well with anyone else either, but there was nothing we could do about it, at least for now.

We ponied up for our food, throwing dough at Brass and grabbing what was ours. Grissom threw in for the absent Sara. I pulled her food aside and went off to go fetch her. I found her as I had earlier, focused on the computer before her and singing under her breath. Smiling, I let my eyes wander over her. Grissom came up beside me, his steps quiet, but Sara must have noticed something because her face turned to us. Grissom angled his head sideways slightly. "Finding anything?"

Sara's eyes were on Grissom's. She shook her head. "I'm not really sure."

"Maybe a break will help. We ordered in breakfast."

I watched as Sara looked at Grissom. I thought she might be thinking of arguing, as focused as she was on the computer, but she only nodded. She rubbed at her eyes and then logged off the computer. We let her pass by and followed her back to the break room.

Grissom and I took our seats. Sara took a seat beside Grissom. Brass handed her a tea and she smile her thanks. Then, she opened up her egg salad sandwich. "Thank you. I needed this."

Brass and Grissom both nodded. Grissom looked over at her, watching as she finished a bite. "You said you weren't sure about what you'd found…"

Sara nodded. "There were a couple mentions of the wine, but only as a part of someone's cellar. At first I looked past that, but then Greg mentioned something about high end wines that made me wonder why it would be listed in a collector's cellar, so I went back. There was an article in _The Daily Telegraph_ about Lord Elstin Powell's wine cellar. Apparently Lord Powell is quite the wine enthusiast and apparently among his collection is a 2000 Nettare di Mattare. I looked into it. It's called a super Tuscan. It is also considered quite rare. It has very low yields and commands very high prices."

"It's a boutique wine," Grissom said.

Sara nodded. She took another bite of her sandwich and chewed, rinsing it down with some tea. "You'd be looking at about $3200.00 for a bottle of the 2000 vintage, and the price is going up. Elstin Powell bought his bottle for around $2000.00."

Both my brows lifted. Catherine and Brass were looking at Sara with an expression close to astonishment. Grissom had that mysterious look about his face that none of us could read.

I did a bit of calculating in my head and then glanced around the table. "$38,400.00 a case for the 2000. There were about how many bottles of the 2000? Five hundred? That's $1.6 million in that vintage sitting in _Ric's_ cellar. Twenty four cases of the 2003 vintage, if the wine runs close to the same price, almost one million. If we mark it down to two grand to be conservative, that's about $576,000.00 of wine in the cellar of that one vintage alone. That's over two million in wine in those two vintages and there are two other vintages with at least 500 bottles of each in that cellar."

Grissom looked at me. "That's a lot of money to have buried in wine."

I looked across at Sara. "You said it was a low yield wine. Did you find out what the yield is for each vintage?"

Sara nodded. "About 350 cases."

I did the math in my head, watching as Sara did the same. "$13.4 million for the 2000 vintage alone," Sara said, beating me, lightning quick with her math.

"That's today's prices," I said, pretending I had been calculating something else. "If they all sold for the price Elstin Powell paid, that's only 8.4 million." Still a nice, tidy little sum. "Four separate vintages, about 33 million, by a conservative estimate. So what is a good chunk of that wine doing sitting in Vito Fava's cellar?"

Catherine looked at us. "If he's selling it, he certainly isn't claiming the income."

Archie came into the break room. He looked at all of us and then at me. His eyes were red. "I've finally had the chance to go through Camille Vanasse's computer," he started, looking apologetic. "I've been going through surveillance of the Monaco for days, for a case from Swing. Anyways, as for Camille Vanasse's computer, there isn't much on there, emails to home, and so on, but recently, she had been spending a lot of time looking into a wine label. A Nettare di Mattare?"

Sara's eyes shot up. She looked at me and then around at everybody else at the table. We all had the same puzzled look. Grissom glanced at Sara. She stood up and looked longingly at the other half of her egg salad sandwich. "Finish it," Grissom said, and Sara did, wolfing the second half down. She took a long sip of her tea, grabbed the mug and followed Archie from the room.

I watched her go and thought about some of the prints that turned up in the joint. Old time mob guys like Max Calvada and Bernard Leonarduzi hung out there. A part of me wondered if they weren't laundering money through the joint of their old pal's son. The mafia may have been dormant in Vegas, but it wasn't dead. Those birds weren't allowed into the casinos anymore, so a high priced wine cellar might be just what they needed to clean some of their funds. Were they moving wine to move money? It could also be how a gent like Lord Elstin got his hands on a bottle, some bird in the mob moving the bottle and finding a buyer in a collector like Lord Elstin. I glanced around the table and laid out my theories.

Grissom looked pensive. "Fava is claiming some income. His profits were higher than we had expected, though the claims weren't high enough given the stockpile of exclusive wine we found in his cellar. He could be claiming revenue from some of the bottles he sells, maybe the ones in house or to legitimate buyers, but not claiming the income of the cases or bottles he's moving elsewhere."

"So Fava's joint could be used to clean money, but if Fava is skimming, how does his money get cleaned?" Brass asked.

Grissom smirked. "He puts it into wine in Italy."

"Can you prove it?" asked Brass.

Grissom shook his head. "No, but Sara is looking into the wine and Greg is going to look into the rest of it, aren't you Greg?"

I jerked a nod towards Grissom, my lips pursing into a small smile. Finishing off the sandwich Brass had brought me, I stood up. It was time I did a little digging.

* * *

><p><em>1: <em>A few months ago, I came across this interesting book about the measures to protect France's wine during WWII. The book is called_ Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure_, by Donald and Petie Kladstrup. The info in Greg's little tidbit comes from that book.


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28**

It was at that point in the case where anticipation begins to hum along the nerve cells. We were close, so close to finding out who the killer was that I could feel it along every inch of my skin. It was like a tingle that crawled up my spine and into my brain and it had all of my hairs standing on end. The feeling was like being with a beautiful woman, her touch edging slowly, lightly, towards something wonderfully promising, the whole body waiting in expectation, delightful foreplay. This was it. I could feel it. We were nearing the end of this intriguing case, this mysterious whodunit. Mandy needed to match that print, otherwise we would be back, not to where we started, but to some other unknown and cursing with frustration, like if that hand of that beautiful woman veered away suddenly from the anticipated, hoped for course. Even as I thought it, the nerves were still tingling. There would be no veering. No, this was going to end in satisfaction, not disappointment.

There was still evidence to process. Things weren't looking all that good on my end. I was looking into the assets and holdings of Vito Fava, but I was getting bupkis. As far as I could tell, Fava didn't own any land in Italy, or have any connections to people that still did. I decided to look into the Ajala family, but the only connections they had in Italy were in Sicily, where the wine was potent and prices ran cheap. The wine in Fava's cellar sported a label from Tuscany. How that wine made its way from the vines of Northwestern Italy to Vito Fava's cellar was still a mystery.

Fava owned few things. He had that private jet, which I now figured was a pretty good investment if a bird was going to be moving a few hundred cases of wine around. Fava also had his house, an upscale little number worth a few million, and not all that little. Parked in his four car garage were a couple of coupes, speedy little numbers as flashy as they were extravagant. He also had a boat, docked at a marina on Lake Mead. There were a couple of pugs in Fava's pocket, or shares of the pugs, one of whom was set to fight at the MGM Grand that night. What Fava didn't have, was a vineyard.

After my eyes had gone squirrelly from staring at a computer screen, I'd decided I'd spent enough time searching at dead ends. It was time for a break, time to check out the other action and find Grissom and Catherine. They were in the layout room, looking at a spread of pictures from Sara's snapshoot of the cellar below _Ric's._

I walked into the room. Both Grissom and Catherine glanced up at me. "I'm getting bupkis," I said. "As far as I can tell, Fava doesn't have any connections to anybody making wine in Italy, not even small vineyards with low yields."

"That's because the wine isn't Italian," Sara said, strolling into the room. My gaze shot up to her. She was carrying in her laptop. Archie followed her in, carrying Camille Vanasse's. They set the two laptops down on the layout table.

"I was racking my brain, trying to figure out why Camille Vanasse would be so interested in the wine. She was researching it; she had a bottle in her purse. I think she didn't know anything about it. I doubt she even really knew what kind of a guy Vito Fava is. She followed him here because she was in love with him."

"Yeah," Catherine said, "but where are you going with this?"

Sara glanced around the table. "Camille Vanasse is from France, or more specifically, from Bandol, a wine producing region and village on the French Riviera. Growing up there, she probably knows a thing or two about wine." Sara paused and took a breath. "She meets Vito Fava when he is on a trip to Southern France, a trip that takes him, not to the Riviera hotspots like St Tropez or Cannes or Nice, but to Bandol, a tourist destination, yeah, but not one you would expect out of Fava. A year later, about the same time of year as he made the trip one year before, Fava takes Camille Vanasse back home for a little vacation, ostensibly to give her a visit back home."

Sara stopped to take another breath. Grissom's eyes narrowed. He looked at Sara. "Are you saying that the wine is from Bandol?"

Sara looked at Grissom, her eyes holding his. I watched the scene and felt my brow pucker. "The place is a speakeasy," I said, almost under my breath. If the joint was selling bootleg wine under fake labels, that made the little back alley café a modern little speakeasy. Prohibition might be long gone, but apparently there was still a market for black market wine.

"Do you have any evidence of that?" Grissom asked.

Archie's fingers played over Camille Vanasse's keyboard. He turned the laptop so that the rest of us could get a good view. "Your victim wasn't only researching the wine; she was also researching a grape – the Mouverdre grape, looking to see if it could be grown in Tuscany."

"The thing is," Sara cut in, "it can't, not really. The grape likes a long, warm growing season. It ripens late. It's finicky. Only a few locations can grow it. For the most part, it is used as a blending grape, but a wine made up of mostly the Mouverdre grape is very specific to Bandol, where the conditions seem to be perfect for growing it. Spain and California have had some luck with it, but in most regions, the grape has failed miserably. That grape, the way it thrives in Bandol, is what makes a Bandol wine special. A Bandol Red has to contain at least fifty percent of the grape. That gives the wine a distinct taste. Camille Vanasse grew up on that grape. She would know the wine. Sara turned to me. "You were right about the fake labels, Greg. Vito Fava is putting a Tuscan label on a Bandol wine."

"But why?"

Sara let her lips turn up into a smile. She glanced at Archie. My gaze followed hers. Archie leaned forward, resting his forearms on the edge of the layout table. "Bandol wine seems to be underrated. Even though it has a growing reputation in the wine community, it still seems to be undervalued in comparison to wines from places like Bordeaux or Burgundy. Even the very best Bandols are relatively affordable to almost anyone."

"Reds from Bandol are considered a hidden gem," Sara put in, "and even the best can't pull in the prices of a quality wine elsewhere, even if the Bandol is superior."

I frowned. "If it's a scam to pull in more dough, then why aren't they putting on the label of some extravagant wine that could really fetch the greenbacks? Something like a Latour or a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, or if they wanted to go Italian, a Masseto?"

Sara shrugged. "It's too easy to get caught, especially given the quantity they are selling. The wine may have a small yield, but it is still a lot of bottles to be moving. If somebody is going to pay the really big money for a bottle of wine, they're going to want that wine to be authentic. They might bring in somebody to test it, do some wine fingerprinting. Besides, Bandol has that distinct taste. It wouldn't be easy for someone to pass of a Bandol as a Latour.

"If they opened the bottle and tasted it," Grissom reminded her. I jerked a nod. A collector might test his wine but chances of him drinking from a bottle he paid several yards of greenbacks for were less than zero, and that line wouldn't move. To bet on the collector actually tasting the wine would be like betting on a long shot with a lame limb.

Sara nodded. "Touché."

"So why would they risk it with their own label?" I asked.

"Because there isn't anything to compare it to other than the same wines under the same label."

"Why an Italian label? Why not a French one, like a Bordeaux? It would probably fetch a better price." I thought of some of the birds that liked to perch at the bar inside _Ric's_, old Italians with old mob connections. "Is it some connection to the old country, kind of a thing?"

"It might be," Sara allowed, "but I think it probably has more to do with Appellation control."

Archie stood up and played over the keys of Sara's laptop. He turned the laptop to face the rest of us. "France has the Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée, or AOC, to ensure where a wine came from."

Sara turned her gaze to me. "All of those mislabeled bottles of wine from World War II you were talking about, Greg, well something like that happened during the First World War, though not on the same scale. There were a lot of mislabeled bottles of wine, causing a lot of confusion. The AOC was created in the thirties to deal with all of the mislabeled wines. Now, it acts as guarantee of a wine's authenticity. The AOC stamp states where that wine came from. They could put on a Bordeaux label, but they could never get it past the French Appellation Control laws, and any savvy collector probably wouldn't buy a Bordeaux without the guarantee of the wine's origin." Sara glanced around the table. "On top of that, the production of French wine is under strict controls, from the vines, to the grapes, to the yields."

"And Italy doesn't have that?" Catherine asked.

Archie glanced at us, kit a few keys on Sara's laptop and brought up another site. "Italy has the DOC, which is similar to France's AOC, but attitudes towards wine are far more relaxed in Italy. They are less likely to play by the rules. In Tuscany, where your label is from, they had the Vino de Tavola revolution. To get a certain rating, winemakers had to follow certain specifications. Some winemakers decided to make the wine they wanted, regardless of what DOC requirements were. When these world renowned Italian wines didn't fit the DOC specifications, they were given the status of a table wine. Powerful winemakers revolted. They threw off the requirements of the DOC. They were making these world class quality wines without following the rules set down by the DOC and they were getting some nice coin for that table wine, demonstrating that a wine didn't need to meet DOC requirements to be world class. In the nineties, the IGT, or Indicazione geographica Tipica classifications were created as a label for those wines, a good deal of them Super Tuscans, to use on export, but that didn't guarantee quality either. The IGT has its own set of requirements, no more flexible than the DOC's."

"What it amounts to, is the lack of a need to meet DOC or IGT specifications," Sara said. "In Italy, the precedent has been set. A quality wine will make its own reputation. Fava can put out a Tuscan label, call it table wine, still charge an exorbitant amount for the wine and not have to worry about the DOC."

Sara and Archie had really done their homework. It was different from Archie's regular line, but he probably discovered a lot of this stuff when going through Vanasse's computer. I glanced at Archie, but moved my gaze to Sara. "So chances of faking a high quality of wine from Tuscany are better than faking a Bordeaux." I smiled. _Ric's _was running a grift, pulling in the rubes, scamming their marks and making far more dough than they would as a club.

Sara nodded. Grissom glanced around the table. "Alright, but how does this lead to Camille Vanasse's murder?"

We looked at Grissom. "Vanasse got curious," Catherine said. "She tasted a wine local to her, was probably puzzled by the Italian label and she got curious about it."

I jerked a nod. So did Sara. "Maybe something didn't sit right with her. She might have freaked out a little, wanted to know what her boyfriend was up to…"

"So, high and jumpy, probably not trusting Fava too much at the moment, she decides to go to his best friend," I put in. "Harry Montoya. That's why she went over there. Thing is, Montoya's such a Lothario, he probably thought Vanasse was there because she couldn't resist him."

"Lothario?" Sara smirked. "I didn't take you for a _Don Quixote_ reader, Greg."

On the level, I didn't actually know the reference. I didn't say anything though, just mock scowled and continued on. "She's high, probably not putting up much resistance in her state, but still trying to get through to him, and he finally figures it out. Either he takes care of the problem himself, or he tells someone and that someone else takes care of it. Either way, like fine Champagne, Vanasse is put on ice."

I watched as Sara's eyes lit with amusement. Her smirk grew. "Right," she said.

We just had to prove it. So far it was all just speculation and we all knew it. We could prove who did the deed on our dead dame once our evidence came in, if we got a match, but the stuff on Fava… "Can we prove that the wine isn't from Tuscany?" I asked.

"Forensic oenology," Grissom said. "We bring in an expert and have the expert test the wine."

"Wine DNA," I said.

Grissom nodded. "Meanwhile, why don't you start by having a look for any connections to Fava in Bandol."

I jerked a nod, grinning as I made my way out of the room. Maybe by the time our wine expert arrived to give us some answers on the wine, I would have a few answers of my own.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **I would like to thank the following books for enlightening me on Appellation Controls in France and Italy:

1. _The Complete Atlas of Wine__, _by Stuart Walton

2. _The Book of European Wines_, by John Booth


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29**

I sat in front of the computer and let all the air in my body fall out in one long breath. If Fava had connections in France, other than Camille Vanasse or her family, they weren't showing up. Sure, searching around a computer could only tell a guy so much, but I was getting zilch. We were missing something somewhere, some link that would make the connection between _Ricardo's Café Italiano _and the source of the wine in _Ric's _cellar. I leaned back and closed my eyes, preparing myself for a long day when my nose caught the familiar aroma of a certain leggy brunette. I smiled and opened my eyes. Sara was standing over me. "Tell me you have something," I said.

Sara smiled. "Your expanded tox panel came back."

I frowned. "Why didn't Henry page me?"

Sara shrugged. "He caught me in the hall on the way by, just as the results were coming in."

"So what did the tox panel say?"

Sara cocked her head to the side. "Positive for cyanide."

"So Hodges was on the nose." I tapped the side of my schnoz and watched Sara's lips curled up into a smirk.

Holding Sara's gaze, I watched as a hint of amusement passed through her eyes. "Sometimes a little too on the nose."

I smirked in return and looked up at Sara. "So what were the levels?"

"220 milligrams."

"Potentially lethal."

Sara nodded. "Mix that with the heroin..."

"And the hearth takes a beating," I finished. "Until it stops beating all together."

"Yeah," she said, her head cocked slightly to the side. She took a seat next to me. "So, how are things coming on this end?"

I looked over at Sara, at the slightly expectant look she got when a case was ready to break. Her eyes breathed excitement. I glanced away. "Not great."

"Can't find a connection between Fava and France?"

I shook my head. "Other than Camille Vanasse..."

I chanced a glance at Sara. Her eyes had dulled, but only slightly. "Well," she said, "we know he's made at least two trips there."

I felt my eyes brighten. "And if he made the trip for another load of wine the same time this year, he would have just made another trip."

"There's nothing in his financials, not credit card receipts or anything to confirm that."

I shook my head, "No, but if he flew in his private jet and stayed with someone down there,"

"And passed dirty cash when he was there..." Sara smirked.

"Then there might not be anything in his financial records." I leaned back. "But, even if he took his private jet, there would still be a flight log."

I looked over at Sara and saw her grin. "I'll go try to get a warrant." She stood up and glanced back at me, a smirk still on her lips. "Brass is bringing Harry Montoya back in. I thought you might want to be there."

I stood up and grinned. "Let me know when you get the warrant."

A half hour later, I was back at PD. Brass hadn't arrived with Montoya yet, but Catherine was there. "Are you taking this interrogation?" I asked.

"Yeah. Why? Do you want it?"

I shrugged. Sure I wanted to see if I could get Montoya to sing, but I knew a broad like Catherine could get him to squirm. Still, I didn't want to sit this one out. I wanted to be there if Montoya tipped hit mitt.

Catherine gave me the eye. "So come along."

I arched an eyebrow. I wasn't sure how that would play with Brass and to be square, I was still a little afraid of the homicide dick. He could be an intimidating bird. I didn't have to worry about that though because when Brass arrived, dragging Montoya by his heels and pushed him into the interrogation room, Catherine stopped Brass. "Greg's going to join us."

Brass gave Catherine the eyeball. "Three people for one little numbskull? You don't think that's a little too much, Cath?"

"So what if the interrogation room feels a little crowded?"

I gave Brass my most winning smile. "Maybe it'll help Montoya think that we're really tightening the screws."

Brass shook his head, frowning. "Alright, but you don't get a seat."

I smirked. "I've been sitting for hours."

We had to wait for Montoya's mouthpiece to arrive before we could begin, so we hung around in the observation room, watching Montoya. He was leaning back in his chair, studying his nails and wearing one of the most arrogant smirks I'd ever witnessed. I glanced at Catherine and Brass and wondered if they saw anything more. Cath was great at interpreting things and reading people and Brass had that copper gut of his from years on the force. That kind of ability took years to develop, or so I told myself. I was better at the science.

The uniform at the door of the interrogation room let in Montoya's mouthpiece. We watched as the mouthpiece took a seat next to Montoya and told him not to worry about a thing. Brass strode from the observation room. Catherine and I decided to give him a minute to get Montoya all warmed up for us.

"Oh, you have a few things to worry about," Brass said, entering and taking a seat across from Harry Montoya.

"Yeah, what's that? Another petty drug charge? Even if you had something, I'd be out in a day."

"Yeah," Brass said, jerking a nod, "I've seen the kind of friends you've got."

Montoya smirked. "You thought I'd actually serve time?"

"I live in hope," Brass deadpanned.

"Aren't you tired of hauling me in here? What are we here for this time?"

Catherine and I took that moment to stroll in. She took a seat while I leaned against the wall.

"Oh, look, it's a party." Montoya gave Catherine the up and down. A lecherous look appeared in his eyes. "I'd party with you anytime, doll."

"Oh please, you've already got enough problems with the women will sleep with you," Catherine said.

"Then maybe you could be the one who doesn't give me any trouble. We could play it smooth."

I felt myself let a quick laugh. "Harry, she's going to be nothing but trouble for you."

"Just like all the other dames. Well, that's alright by me." He winked at Catherine. "I like trouble."

"Good," Brass said, "Because you're in a heap of it."

"Let's start with how you tried to strangle Camille Vanasse when she wanted to know your pal Fava was up to," Catherine started.

Montoya held up his hands. "Easy kitten."

I stepped away from the wall and moved to the table, setting my hands down on it and leaning over Montoya. "We know what happened, Harry, so let us lay it out for you. Camille Vanasse found out about Fava's little wine grift." I stood up and paced a few steps. "How is still a mystery to us. She torches at the club for over two years without getting wise, so I figure somebody must have given her a sip of the wine, and I'm thinking it was you."

Montoya scoffed. "I don't know what you're talking about."

I watched as Catherine and Brass both eyed Montoya, trying to get a line on him. He was bluffing, I knew it, but I didn't know if he was the one to have originally fed Camille Vanasse the wine. I figured he fit the bill though. He was just the kind of mug to do it.

"I think you do," Catherine said. "I think you were trying to wine and dine her and maybe get her in between the sheets. I don't think Fava would have made the mistake of giving her any wine. He was careful enough to keep her out of his business and he knew where she was from."

"He was also smart enough to figure she might get wise to the grift," I added.

Montoya didn't say anything. Catherine leaned forward. "Fava's the wine guy. He's been around it enough to know his wine has a distinct 'Bandol' taste, and that's where you screwed up. Camille Vanasse wasn't falling for your lines. She was dizzy over your friend, but you just had to have her, didn't you. So, you tried to impress her with an expensive bottle, only the wine you fed her is wine she grew up on and she recognized it."

Catherine paused to take a breath, so I jumped in. "But she was baffled by the label. She knew the wine was no more Tuscan than she was, so maybe she asks about it, and I think that's where you made your second mistake. You probably thought the wine impressed her so I figure you told her it was one of Fava's bottles, an expensive little number he kept on stock that you had access to. Camille Vanasse didn't bite though. Instead, she began to look into the wine."

"Probably?" the mouthpiece asked. "You figure?" He leaned forward, crossing his arms over the table. "It sounds like you don't have anything. You're just theorizing here."

"For now, but listen up, because the theory is about to get a little more interesting," Catherine said, leaning forward to meet the mouthpiece's eye. "Camille Vanasse's computer shows her doing research, making inquiries by email, trying to look up the vineyard and when she couldn't find it, she began looking into the grape, a rare little grape called the mouverdre, not grown in Tuscany, but a grape that happens to thrive in the South of France and that makes up at least 50% of the blend in Bandol wines."

"So here's what happened," Brass said. "Camille Vanasse got wise to Fava's scheme. She took a little tour of his cellar and pulled out a bottle. Then, she went to you for answers."

"Yeah?" Montoya asked, his mouth twisted in a sneer. "Why would she go to me if this so called scheme you're dreaming up was Vito's scheme?"

"I don't know," Brass said. "Maybe because she didn't want to have to face Fava. She was in love with him, and maybe she didn't want to see him lie to her face, so she decided on his best friend, or maybe it was because you were one who opened up that bottle for her in the first place."

Brass leaned back. I paced behind him. "So she heads over to your apartment to confront you, but she's a junkie, so she probably indulged in a little nose candy to take the edge off before going over there. Maybe she even asked about having some more of that wine again and you figured the wine must have worked like a charm, but that really doesn't matter. What matters is that she's all gowed-up and you think there could only be one reason a dame like that is showing up at your door, so you show her your bed."

"But she wasn't there for sex," Catherine said. "And you took advantage of her."

"She's too gowed-up to resist you, but she tried, didn't she, even though she was too high to put up a fight? That's why the coroner thought it looked more like rough sex. There were injuries, but not enough to suggest trauma. She did scratch you though, and you did try to strangle her, which would hold up in court if she were alive to press charges." I walked over to the table and leaned against it. "So what happened? How did she finally get your attention? Did she begin to babble about the wine?"

"You're a little slow, Harry," Brass cut it. "It took you awhile to realize what she was really there for, didn't it?"

"But you did," I cut in, "and you got angry. I've seen your temper and you took it out on Camille Vanasse that night, didn't you? She began grilling you on the wine and you began to strangle her. Then what? You see her below you, you're killing her in your apartment, and you know you've messed up? So why didn't you finish her off there? Is it because you're actually sharp enough to know that it's going to be hard smuggling a dead body out of your apartment building? The walls are pretty thin there, and your neighbors…well, we met one of them. The kind of woman that wants to stay well out of your business but still likes to keep her eye out on you, right?"

Montoya stared at me, his eyes as glaring as his silence. I stared back at him. "So you let Camille Vanasse go and you follow her back to the club, watching to see what she'll do while you hatch a plan. You've got time. She can't call the cops from _Ric's _because the joint doesn't have a phone line and Camille Vanasse doesn't carry a cell. Something still has to be done because not only is she onto Fava's little wine grift, but you've assaulted her. That's when you decide to make it look like an overdose. You still had your hand painted purple and blue on her neck but you knew there would be an autopsy and you figured the coroner would put the cause of death down as an O.D. rather than strangulation. You took a chance that some bruises on a junkie wouldn't be connected with an overdose."

"Are you finished?" Montoya asked.

"Not quite," Brass said. "We found the wine bottle and we found the syringe, and when we find your prints on it…"

"What syringe?" Montoya asked, his eyes narrowing and his brow pinching. His tone sounded almost convincing. It wasn't said with the same sneer as every other word out of his trap. I frowned, giving him the eyeball. A quick glance at Catherine and Brass showed they were doing the same.

I stared at Montoya. "The syringe used to inject heroin and cyanide into Vanasse's wine. We lifted prints."

"Good. Then maybe you'll finally stop hauling me down here."

"Look," Brass said, "if we find your print, it's open and shut, but if you didn't drug Vanasse's wine, then you told somebody at the club that Vanasse was onto the grift and you go down for conspiracy to commit murder. We're giving you a chance here, before the print comes in. You'd be wise to take it. So, who did you tell? Fava? His button man? Or maybe it was your moll."

Montoya leaned back and smirked. "I still don't know what you're flapping your gums about."

"Let me make it easy on you. Right now, the DA can file charges for rape and conspiracy to commit murder, at the very least. If it's your print lifted off that syringe, it's murder one. So if you didn't do it, tell us who you told about Vanasse getting wise to the wine and maybe the DA will drop the conspiracy charge."

Montoya's mouthpiece leaned over and whispered something to him. The corners of Montoya's lips lifted. "Rape?" he asked, scoffing as he said it. He stood up. "You can't prove that. You can't prove any of this," he said, "So, I think I'll be on my way."

"Unless you want to go to court with what you have," Montoya's mouthpiece added. Brass shook his head. Montoya was right; we couldn't prove any of it, not yet. We wouldn't be able to confirm what Vanasse's heroin levels were when she went over to Montoya's apartment, so there was no way to prove he'd actually taken advantage of her hopped-up state and she wasn't in the position to spill. Vanasse was dead and dead dames don't talk. Maybe evidence did, but the evidence we had wasn't enough, not if Montoya didn't inject the heroin and cyanide into the wine.

I stood by the door and watched Montoya leave. His shoulder bumped mine as he made the exit. He could play the confident cat, but we were on the money about what had happened; I'd lay heavy odds on that. It was the only way I could see it fit. It would be all silk if it turned out his print was on that syringe, but given the smug look that was plastered over his mug as he left, I felt like that was betting the long shot.


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter 30**

"The DA isn't going to file charges."

I looked at Grissom and felt the frown forming on my face. Even as he said it, I'd known what the lay was. "He's going to walk," I said.

Grissom looked at Catherine and me walking beside him in the hall. "If we get him for murder, the DA will consider adding a rape charge."

I watched as Catherine shook her head. "No," she said, "Greg's right; he'll walk. That isn't his print on the syringe."

"Has Mandy ruled him out?"

"Mandy hasn't given us anything yet."

"But you're sure it isn't his print on the syringe?"

Catherine let out a rueful laugh. "It's not. I'm sure of it."

Grissom looked at me. I was inclined to agree with Catherine, but I was hesitant to put the cart before the horse before Grissom. I shrugged. "I don't think Montoya's that good of a bluffer," I said.

Grissom nodded again. I watched the thoughtful look cross his face and felt myself grow angry. "This is bunk. Harry Montoya took advantage of that girl. She wasn't in any position to say no to him or to fight him off of her."

"We don't know what her heroin levels were when she visited him, Greg."

"She was hopped-up. She had to be if she expected that going to him would give her any answers."

"And that made her pliant," Catherine added. "You know the score, Grissom. We've seen it before."

"But we can't prove it, and if we can't prove Montoya raped Camille Vanasse, the DA won't file charges."

I scoffed. "Yeah, they don't want to see him beat the rap while they get caught holding the bag." Thinking about it really got in my grill. I looked over at Catherine and saw it wasn't duck soup for her either.

"Right now, let's focus on what we do have."

Both Catherine and I shot a glare at Grissom. Sure he may not have been unaffected by it, but Grissom sure was playing cool about the DA's refusal to charge Harry Montoya with rape. I wasn't sure how he did it. It just didn't sit well with me.

Sara poked her head around the corner. "Hey Griss…" She stopped short and gave us the up and down. She frowned. "What's up?"

"The DA isn't going to charge Montoya," I said. "That bird is going to fly free."

Sara frowned. Grissom sighed. "I know you want to get Montoya. I want to get him too, but if the DA doesn't have a case against him, it's better to wait to file charges until we do."

"Meanwhile Montoya flies the coop and takes a bunk."

Catherine shook her head. "He's too cocky. He'll stick around because he thinks he beat the rap."

"He has," I said, my voice still lace with anger. "Right now he's just stringing us."

Grissom frowned and looked at Sara. "Do you have something?"

She gave us the eyeball again and then looked at Grissom. "Two things." Her gaze turned to me. "First, Greg, the warrant came in for Fava's flight logs. Sofia is looking at them." Sara looked back to Grissom. "Grissom, the forensic onologue is here. She's in the break room."

Grissom nodded. We followed Sara back to the break room where a woman roughly Catherine's age stood. She had the bottles of the four different vintages in front of her. Grissom stood across from her and extended his hand. He gave out his monicker and then introduced the rest of us.

"Dr. Joan Davis," she replied in response.

I gave the dame the up and down. She was attractive woman, for any guy that didn't go in for the glitter of the Las Vegas dish. This dame had California written all over her, from the blonde hair, blue eyes and golden tan, to the jeans and Birkenstocks and poncho she sported. If I hadn't known she'd flown in from San Francisco, I still would have had her figured for it. She had a real earthy quality to her. Her face sported a few lines from time spent out in the sun. Her hair was long and straight, slightly uneven and a little messy and her bangs wisped off to one side. Her lips were a little thin, but her smile was wide and genuine and it brought out the blue in her eyes, pacific blue all the way. I felt a smile tug at my lips as Grissom gave her a little bit of the up and down.

Joan Davis picked up one of the bottles and examined the label. She looked back at Grissom. "This is the wine?" she asked.

He nodded.

"What did you want to know?"

Sara stepped forward. "You can match a wine to a particular vineyard, correct?"

Joan Davis jerked a slight nod. "Wine fingerprinting is still very much in its infancy, but if we have the wine and if we know the vineyard, we can match the two."

"How would you go about doing that?" Grissom asked. He took a seat across from the wine doctor and the rest of us followed.

"There are a few ways out there," she said. "We can try to get the DNA fingerprint by testing the wine against the soil in the vineyard, looking at isotopes and so forth. There are certain compounds in the soil that would be drawn up into the vines, and then, subsequently, into the wine even though soils can have a considerable variance in one vineyard alone. If we wanted to look at a more specific sample, we could test a vine, taking a DNA fingerprint from a specific vine leaf and compare it to the wine coming from that vine, matching the genomes. Both of these methods are very much in their infancy though. It's just chemistry, but it does not yet have the studies backing its foundation."

"But the science will back it," Grissom said.

Joan Davis nodded.

"What if you weren't sure about the vineyard?" Sara asked. Joan Davis arched a brow. Sara turned the Tuscan label to Joan Davis. "The label says Tuscany and our research shows the wine to be a Super Tuscan, but we believe this wine is from France."

The wine doctor pursed her thin lips. She looked across at Sara. "First, you would probably want to disprove the Tuscan label before searching out where the wine is from, and you would have to do that by comparing the wine to the vineyard it is supposedly from, but as this is a table wine, the vineyard would be very hard to find, if it exists at all." She paused. "Where do you think the wine is from?"

"Bandol."

The wine doctor let a small smile bloom across her face. "Then, the mouverdre grape will have prominence."

Sara nodded.

"Bandol has a long growing season, but they prefer very low yields to improve the quality of their wine. The best Bandols are barrel aged for a couple of years and then not opened for another decade after being bottled. The vines are older, have been around for several years. If it's a quality wine, you wouldn't be looking at new stock."

We all nodded and looked across at the wine doctor. She thought for a moment and then met our gazes. "We could test tannins and compare tannins, but it is very likely that the wine is at least a little bit of a blend. It's unlikely it's one hundred percent mouverdre. This is where a foundation would come in handy. In the future, I am sure we will have data on tendencies for each variety of wine and we would be able to look at the tendencies for wines with mouverdre grape varietals from that data alone. Right now, we would have to test the tannins, though if the mouverdre grape shows prominence in the wine, it's a sure bet the wine isn't a Super Tuscan."

I looked over at Sara to watch the wide, brilliant smile overtake her features. I looked back at the wine doctor. "What do we need to do?"

"Without knowing the vineyard?"

I jerked a nod.

"Compare it with other Bandol wines to see if we can find tendencies similar to both. It will be a bit of a process and unfortunately comparing tannins isn't nearly as definitive as comparing a wine to a vineyard."

"What about tasting it?" I asked. "Would you be able to tell if it was a Bandol wine by taste?"

Joan Davis shrugged. "Taste is ambiguous to begin with and I am only slightly familiar with Bandol wines."

"But if the taste is so distinct…"

Grissom looked over at me and frowned. "You wouldn't be advocating for drinking in the lab, would you Greg?"

I felt a grin pull at my mouth. I shrugged. "An experiment," I said, unable to wipe the smirk from my face. If there was something Grissom loved, it was a good experiment. Still grinning, I kept my eyes on Grissom's. "What could a little gargle and spit hurt?" I asked. "We don't have to swallow."

There are those moments when you know you have someone. We were all curious about the wine, had been ever since we crawled into that little hole and saw endless bottles of the juice as far as the eye could see, or at least as far as the cellar took us before the tunnel turned off into another direction. Grissom wanted the skinny on the wine, so why not taste it with our wine doctor here. He certainly tasted far more suspect things on the job, and he was not adverse to infecting people with fungi in the name of science, so why not indulge in a little vino in the name of science. Grissom had a grin tugging at his lips and I knew he was up for a little experiment.

"Opening the bottle would add oxygen and alter its chemistry. Even if the alteration is only slight, I want to keep the bottled wine in tact while I test it," our forensic onologue put in.

"We have hundreds of each vintage to choose from," I said. "We can get someone to pick you up another bottle while we locate other Bandols for you to compare to."

She looked a little unsure, but I could see curiosity was getting the better of her. She wanted to taste the wine that had her flying from the coastal climate of California to the dry Las Vegas desert on Clarke County's bill. "I might be able to give you something," she said.

I grinned and watched as Joan Davis pulled out a small corkscrew from her bag. She examined the bottles and selected the oldest vintage, the 2000. Twisting the corkscrew in, she slowly drew out the cork. I grabbed mugs from the cupboard and handed them to Grissom.

Joan Davis's nose lingered over the bottle. She lifted the bottle and was about to pour the wine when my voice stopped her. "Should we get Hodges to sniff it first?" I asked.

Sara let out a short, but energetic laugh. Grissom frowned. "You're not swallowing it, Greg." He shook his head and indicated for the wine doctor to continue. Slowly, she poured each of us some wine and then lifted her own to her nose. "Very strong," she said. "Heavy on the tannins."

"Any bitter almond scent?" I asked, shooting Sara a mischievousness grin. Sara tried to stifle her own grin. Her eyes glowed. I turned back to the wine, sniffed and sipped and had no trouble spitting the wine out. Sara laughed, but from the expression that flitted across her face as she took her own sip told me that she had no trouble spitting the wine out either.

The wine doctor smiled at us. "Complex wines, for the connoisseur, an acquired taste," she said. I frowned. I liked a little merlot after work and I told her so. She smiled again and took her own sip of the wine. I watched, waiting for that puckered reaction that Sara and I had but the wine doctor's face remained straight. I watched Grissom and Catherine sample their wine, waiting and finding their reactions anticlimactic as well. Grissom and Catherine were far more elegant in their tasting than Sara or I had been.

I watched the wine doctor to see if she could give us anything before she actually tested the wines. "It's very young," she said. "Too young to drink, yet. Very heavy on the tannins, very chewy. Its youth confirms that it is a wine that requires aging. It could be a Bandol, but the wine is far too young for me to be able to tell with any accuracy. You'll have to wait for the tests."

"What about if somebody grew up on Bandol wines?" I asked. "Would that person be able to tell?"

Joan Davis pursed her lips. "If that person grew up on the wine, had tasted it young, or even from the barrel, maybe. That person would certainly have more authority than me. Unfortunately, I am far more familiar with the red varietals of the Napa and Sonoma Valleys…merlots, cabs, pinots…"

"So somebody from the Bandol region could, theoretically, tell if a certain wine was a Bandol, even if the wine was young."

"It's very possible," Joan Davis replied. Grissom looked at me. "Greg, go to _Ric's _and replace the 2000 for Dr. Davis. Bring another of each bottle while you're at it."

I nodded. He turned to Catherine. "Can you see if you can hunt down some other Bandols? Try to get the same vintages."

Catherine smirked and nodded. Joan Davis was sure to help her out with some ties in the wine trade, but I was sure Catherine was about to call on some of her own connections to help her in that search.

We cleaned up and watched Grissom leave, escorting the attractive wine doctor to the trace lab. I shook my head as Grissom lead her away. I did not envy her having to work with Hodges in his domain.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Info on wine fingerprinting and wine DNA came from the following websites:

1. Forensic Science and Wine Fingerprinting, from the reign of terrior website, _2009/02/09forensic-science-and-wine-fingerprinting_

2. Fingerprinting Red Wine, from the rsc publishing website, _/Publishing/ChemScience/Volume/2010/12/fingerprinting_red_wine_

3. DNA Fingerprinting used for Wine Testing, from Forensic Science, suite 101, _/article/dna-fingerprinting-used-for-wine-testing-a185318_


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter 31**

It was quiet and dark back at _Ric's_. The air inside felt dry and stale. All alone in the café, only a uniform at the door to guard the yellow crime scene tape, I took my time in the joint. Vito Fava was using the place as a drum, selling illegal giggle juice and possibly indulging in a few other grifts to earn a few more c notes along the way, and then doing the laundry on the Mediterranean.

Sometime during the day or maybe it was the night before, I'd lost track of the time. Maybe it was how busy things had gotten, or maybe it was that feeling in the gut that we were almost there, that soon we'd have the dope on everything that went down in this back alley gin joint. It was dusk now. The last of the daylight mingled with the lights of downtown. Inside though, it was dark, blocked off from the last light of the day and lit only by the dim lighting of _Ric's _lounge.

I glanced around, at the tables and the bar, vintage, classy, cherry wood mixing with crimson velvet. My glance wandered over the floor, hard wood, smooth, but for the scratches of chair legs and moving the bar back and forth, to hide and reveal the entrance to the cellar. I could almost picture the birds inside, pinstriped suits, handkerchiefs in the left breast pocket, or maybe a red rose instead, cocktail waitress serving wine or hooch, the bartender behind the bar pouring corn into glass and listening to the a couple of lugs at the bar flapping their gums, Montoya leaning one elbow on the bar and his moll, Lauren Perske, decked out in almost nothing but the few strands of glitter of her showgirl get-up, her gorgeous gams on full display, leaning into Montoya and watching him with her icy blue eyes. I could see the Bruno at the door giving all the unwelcome mugs the bum's rush and peeking in to make sure everything was kosher, on the up and up, and Fava wandering around in glad rags, plastering on a charming smile for the patrons.

I glanced at the stage, quiet and dark and could picture Camille Vanasse there as well, the exotic beauty, her dark olive complexion a mixture of her father's light olive French Rivieran complexion and her mother's Northern African caramel colored skin. I could almost imagine Vanasse up on that stage, her green eyes on Fava, her pipes torching away as her sultry voice bellowed out Edith Piaf's, _Non, je ne regrette rien. _I wondered what she would have thought if she sang the jingle, if she would have actually meant the words behind the lyrics, if despite everything that had happened to her, losing her home and the sea and her future as a musician for a back alley gin joint in the desert and a future as a washed out hop-head, if she had no regrets about any of it. I wondered if she thought that following the lug she was in love with and losing everything else that she loved was worth it. I doubted it. Fava wasn't worth it. He wasn't worth any of it. A year in and she'd had regrets or else she wouldn't have started in on the nose candy. Even as I pictured the canary belting out the words to the Piaf tune, they cut through me. The tragic beauty meeting a tragic end.

I had to stop staring at the stage. I could still see her there, could picture her in any era. The setting timeless, the joint abandoned, if felt as though I was in the company of ghosts. This place came alive when Vegas had and the characters in this joint could fit in any time. It could still be the 60's, when Nicky Fava's girl, Laney Hathaway had her pipe slit and Casey Shaw, the only g-man to get inside the joint, vanished, or the 80's, when Victoria Harlow's body had been found in a nearby dumpster. This joint had a thing for doing in dames that crossed any kind of line. Shivering, I moved behind the bar and slipped down into the hole.

Lighting the cellar, I followed the dim lights and glittering dark glass to the end of the tunnel. I did not linger, the tunnel dark and all alone, something was crawling up my spine and putting my arm hairs on end. I grabbed the bottles I needed and scrammed, closing the cellar behind me and beating it out into the lounge again.

Behind me, a door creaked slowly open. Holding the bottles in my arms, I spun and watched a sliver of light come in through the hall. My breaths quickened. I felt my body tense. I waited.

"Sanders?" Officer Akers peeked in and I let out the breath I'd been holding, almost dropping the bottles as the air left me.

"I just wanted to check in on you," Akers said. "It was awfully quiet in here."

I gave him the up and down and jerked a nod. "I'm all through. We can get out of here."

When I got back to the lab, Catherine had managed to get a Bandol for our forensic onologue to start on. Grissom and Sara were in with her, working the wine angle and watching the wine doctor do her thing with muted fascination. I dropped off the bottles and pulled out my cell, calling Sofia. Enough people were looking at the wine for the moment. I wanted to take a look at those flight logs.

I met the beautiful blonde dick in the lab break room. She brought Fava's flight logs and we poured over them, checking all the in and outs of the country. Fava was all over the place, hitting Italy and Sicily, and yes, Southern France. It seemed the bird liked to make an annual trip down to Marseille, and from Marseille, it figured he liked to take a nice little drive down to Bandol. He'd flown into Marseille only a couple of short weeks ago. Funny that Vanasse hadn't joined him given that her home was only a short drive away.

I added the flight logs to Fava's file and paced around the break room wondering what kind of job I could be working. Grissom and Sara were working the wine angle with the wine doctor. Hodges was hovering around there as well, not about to dust from his lab with Grissom there, so I figured the trace lab had to be getting a little crowded. I figured I could help Catherine trace Bandols for the onologue, but I knew Catherine had that well under control. Besides, she was the one with all the connections. I wouldn't have even known where to start when trying to locate wines from a very small area that produced very small yields. I couldn't get after Mandy for our print because she was off and wouldn't be in until later. I decided it was time to dust for some grub and maybe a couple hours of repose. I was getting a little famished and my stomach had been making some strange grumbling noises for the past few hours.

Grissom, Sara and the wine doctor were still going full guns when I got back. Rested and partially satiated, I got back to work. Fava's flight logs confirmed Fava was making annual trips to the South of France, but we still needed something to connect him to the place, or to some vineyard or vigneron. At the moment, Fava could claim he liked to vacation on the Riviera, so we needed something more. I set myself back down in front of the computer and kept digging.

A few hours later, Catherine found me. I looked up at the strawberry blonde and gave her the up and down. She looked rested too, so I had it figured she'd made her calls from home and gotten a bit of shut-eye while other people hunted down the wine for her.

I pushed back from the table and gave Catherine the eyeball. "You find all the wine?"

She jerked a nod. "I got a few bottles for Dr. Davis to start on. A few more are being shipped in from elsewhere."

"Is the wine doc looking at them right now?"

Catherine shook her head. "Grissom's got them taking a break. He's ordering in food. I came to ask you what you wanted."

I cocked my head to the side. Sure, I'd had something to eat when I went home earlier, but that was hours ago and I was getting a little hungry again. I sent Catherine away with an order for a pastrami sandwich, and then logged off and went to the break room to join the others.

Catherine was by the sink, pouring herself a cup of joe. At the table, Grissom and the wine doc were engaged in conversation while Sara sat beside Grissom, trying not to nod off over her mug of tea. Fatigue wafted off of her and I doubted that she or Grissom had stopped for any kind of rest at all.

Taking my eyes off Sara, I moved over to the java and poured myself a mug. Then, I moved to sit across from Sara, watching her head bob forward. Still giving her the eyeball, I reached across the table and pulled her mug of tea back slightly. She looked up at me. I gave her a cheeky grin. "Wouldn't want you falling into it."

Sara scrunched up her nose. "I'll be fine once I get food in me."

"You didn't pack a lunch?"

"Greg, lunch was hours ago." She pouted and crossed her arms. "I didn't pack enough."

My head cocked to the side. "I went home. I could have brought you something back..." I grinned at the unamused expression on her face and pushed her tea back towards her so that she could take a sip. "How's it going with the wine?"

Sara's expression brightened and I knew she was completely jazzed about working the wine angle. Sara was the kind of dame that got really jazzed about even a tiny piece of evidence. Give her a puzzle or a new angle to work, or teach her something, and Sara was flying high. Forensic oenology was just the kind of thing that could light the fire in her coffee colored eyes. She grinned at me. "It's interesting." Both Grissom and Joan Davis glanced over at her to smile, but her shining dark eyes stayed focused on mine. "We're already seeing comparative tendencies in the bottles from _Ric's._"

I held Sara's eyes and was about to respond when Warrick's voice interrupted me. "What's this, a powwow?"

My eyes shot up to Warrick and I watched as Grissom introduced him to our wine doctor. Warrick gave her a nod before moving to the coffee pot and pouring himself some java. "Forensic oenology?"

I grinned. Warrick's green eyes reflected the intrigue. "Pique your interest?" I asked.

Warrick jerked a nod. I let my grin spread. "We figure Fava was using his gin mill as a speakeasy, but instead of hooch, he was selling black market wine."

Warrick shook his head. "Black market wine? I didn't even know there was such a thing. And here I thought the joint was just used to run bets out of and host poker games for high pillows these days."

"Eleven months out of the year, yeah, it figures he's got bookies betting the bangtails and boxing matches, runners coming and going, moving the line, and big shots sitting around the table, but at least once a year, Fava's been going in for the big score."

Warrick shook his head at me and let out a small laugh. He sat down next to Catherine. "What's the deal Griss? You let Greggo in on this case, and I get stuck with leftovers? Wasn't there anything better to send me out to than to a scene where some mug tried to knock over a convenience store?"

If it was Nick, it may have sounded a bit like a whine, but Warrick's voice came across so cool that nobody took it as one. He was ribbing me and while he was at it, the boss.

Grissom looked over at Warrick. "You closed the case already?"

Warrick let out a laugh. "The guy was caught fleeing from the scene. He was still packing and was trying to stuff down some of the Doritos he stole while running away. He left evidence all over the place. His mug is all over the surveillance video. Apparently, his mask was itchy, so he pulled it up to his forehead so that he could give his face a good scratch. The brainiac didn't even bother to turn away from the camera while he did it."

We all laughed, except for Sara, who had begun to nod off again. After getting food in her, Grissom was sure to send her off for a quick nap.

Warrick leaned back in his seat, gripping his cup of joe in one hand. "Anyways, I took prints, and Bobby Dawson is comparing shell casings and the bullet the perp put into the slushy machine to the perp's gun. You got anything else for me?"

Grissom shook his head. "Go through your backlog. If something new comes up, you're on first call."

Warrick jerked a couple nods. "Cool."

Our food arrived and Grissom roused Sara with a gentle shake on the shoulder before heading to reception to pay for and pick up the grub. As we ate, we bumped gums with the wine doctor, getting the skinny on her background and listening to her tell stories of growing up among the vines in Bodega Bay on the Sonoma Coast. The wine doctor liked a good story and was good at telling one. She was a good egg, funny and clever and she held everybody's interest with each anecdote. Grissom was hanging onto her every word, his eyes crinkled in amusement.

We were just about finished shoveling in the grub when Mandy stopped in. All eyes, except Warrick's, shot up to the print tech. She handed Grissom a file. "Results on your prints came in."

"The syringe?" I asked.

Grissom looked at the file. Sara was peering over his shoulder. She pulled out her phone and looked at Grissom. "I'll call Brass."

Grissom nodded softly. Catherine took the file and looked at it. I stood up and glanced at it from behind her. Grissom looked over at me. "Greg," he said.

I jerked a nod and stood up, stuffing the last of my sandwich in my mouth. "I'm on it."


	32. Chapter 32

**Chapter 32**

The room through the glass was quiet. There was hum of tension that could be felt, even through the one way mirror. The speaker in the room buzzed softly with inactivity. Slowly, the door opened.

"Planning a trip somewhere?" Sara asked, sliding into a seat at the interrogation room table.

I was taking a break from my work to watch Grissom and Sara from the observation room. My gaze was hard on Vito Fava as he looked up at Sara. "How can I? You grounded my plane."

"Just in time, though. How many minutes away were you from taking off?"

Fava stared at her, his icy gaze meeting Sara's directly. He leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Less than ten. Now, what is this about? I have business out east to attend to."

"I bet you do," Sara said. She glanced to Grissom, seated beside her. He was quiet, almost too quiet for a normal bird, but for Grissom… Well, Fava didn't know Grissom and the silent stare was sure to get to him. I wondered at the expression on Grissom's face. Was he staring across at Fava and Fava's mouthpiece, studying? Calculating? Waiting for some sort of slip up? He had all the crab and in a few minutes, he was going to put Fava behind the eight ball. It was something else to watch too, when Grissom gave the mugs the dope on the science behind it all.

My gaze turned back to Sara just as her head turned back to Fava. "Are you sure you weren't trying to make a break for it?"

I felt my lip curl up. I had money on Fava trying to get the dust on us. There was no way Montoya hadn't spilled about us knowing about his wine grift and Fava was a smart enough gee to know when the fix was in. He knew it was smart to skip town, and he very nearly got the leg on us. We got him though, only Fava wasn't copping to anything. He just watched Sara silently.

"We have a few more questions," Sara said.

Fava's mouthpiece glared at Sara. "You couldn't have asked them at the airport? You had to haul my client in?"

Sara shook her head. "We know all about the wine scam you're running out of _Ric's._"

Fava stared at Sara, his mug giving nothing away. His voice was cool, even. "I don't know what you are talking about. _Ric's _is a licensed café. We sell wine."

"It's not that you're selling wine, it's the wine you're selling," Grissom said. "It's illegal to sell a Tuscan wine if it's not actually from Tuscany."

Fava's glance shot to him.

"We found your cellar," Sara added.

Fava glanced between the two of them. He looked like he was debating whether or not to speak. He chose to stay wise and stay clammed. Grissom and Sara exchanged a glance. They didn't need Fava to sing. They knew all the notes. I watched Grissom and Sara in that interrogation room and wanted to be in there with them, but they were the ones who ran the wine angle, working with the wine doc. This was their show. My time was going to come.

"If you've got nothing to say, we'll just let the evidence do the talking," Grissom said.

Fava stayed silent. His steely grey eyes flitted between Grissom and Sara.

"Let me tell you all about the grift you're running," Sara began, "and then, maybe you'll want to speak." She paused for effect and then began, "You took over _Ric's_ four years ago, in 2002, but not until after a dispute with Ricardo Ajala's daughters, a dispute that lasted two and a half years before you took control over the club."

"I already gave you guys the lay on that. I wanted more money invested into the club."

"You wanted to turn the tunnel system below the club into a wine cellar, but you weren't telling Ajala's daughters that. You already had your own share to split with a partner. You didn't want to have to hand over the rest of the profits to a couple of greedy girls, girls who wouldn't even give you the money to make the upgrades you were planning on making. You didn't tell them why you wanted to make those upgrades, did you?"

Fava was silent. Sara leaned forward. "Of course you didn't, because if you had, they might have backed you, even with the substantial price they would have to pay to make those upgrades. What did you call the upgrades when you spoke to my colleagues?" She paused, "'subtle, but effective', I think they noted. Right, so subtle that nobody even noticed them. They all took place underground."

Sara paused for breath. I leaned forward, watching her do her thing, a pit bull in there and Fava was her prey. She was about to have him between the teeth.

"You had stumbled onto an idea for a scam, didn't you?" She paused. "You knew you could make a lot of cash if you inflated the price on wine. I think the scam fell into your lap, your silent partner bringing you this great idea for a grift. Anyways, you had a source for wine and you knew you could inflate the price of it and pawn it off on a bunch of rubes that had more money than common sense. You inflated the price and you inflated their ego. You took a wine, a Bandol, slapped on a Tuscan label and sold it at extravagant prices. You couldn't call it a Bordeaux or anything like that because then you would have had to contend with France's AOC, _Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée_. Even if you had gotten the wine past the French authorities and even if you planned on selling the wine on the black market, nobody would have bought the wine, not without a guarantee of the wine's origin."

Sara paused. Fava was leaning back in his chair, apparently amused at Sara's little monologue. Sara sat up straighter and began again. "You couldn't pass it off as an already known, expensive bottle either, slapping a Latour or a Châteauneuf-du-Pape label because you had a lot of wine to move and you wanted to go for the big scam. There was no way you could pass off that many bottles of one of those wines."

She paused again. I watched from the mirror as her back rose and fell in a heavy breath. Fava kept silent. He wasn't talking. Maybe he'd feel like singing when we hit him with the big stuff.

Sara leaned back. "Here's what you did. You had a supplier for Bandol wine, but you wanted the big score, so you chose a Tuscan label. Tuscan wines are still considered noble wines and some fetch some pretty good coin. And what better place to put on a label than the place where the Vino de Tavola revolution began. You knew you could get around the DOC and the IGT by calling the wine a table wine and you would still get a good price, if the wine was good." Sara paused. "And apparently the wine is very good, to extravagant people who enjoy a good wine.

"Do you have any proof of this?" Fava's mouthpiece asked.

"We'll get to that," Sara said. "First, Mr. Fava, let's talk about how you bought out _Ric's_. It took over two years, correct? And the price wasn't chiseled down like you pretended it to be. But that was okay because you had a partner to back you and a good scam waiting at the end of it, and your wine, being from Bandol, had to age in oak barrels for at least eighteen months anyways. You had time. You were patient, and it paid off, didn't it? Until Camille Vanasse died."

Fava still wasn't talking. His mouthpiece looked at Sara. Sara glanced to Grissom. He sat up. "You were asking about proof? We pulled bottles from the cellar and tested their tannins against each other. They all demonstrated very similar tendencies, as they would if they were all from the same source."

"Wait," Fava's mouthpiece cut in. "You tested their tannins?"

"That's right," Grissom answered.

The mouthpiece looked a little confused. My mouth lifted up into a little grin as Sara set her shoulders straight. She was going in for the kill, but drawing it out so that Fava would know he was had well before the fatal blow came down. "Let us break it down for you, so that you understand it, because we already know that your client certainly does," Sara said. She opened the folder sitting between her and Grissom and slid a paper across the table, letting it rest in front of the shyster. "Tannins are plant based polyphenols, or compounds that form complexes with proteins in organic matter. In wine, the tannins come from grape skins, seeds and stems and they are unique to each wine, and each vintage. However, wines of the same grapes have similar tendencies. That's how people who drink a fair amount of wine could tell if a wine was say, a Cabernet Sauvignon, or so forth. Now, as you would expect, if you looked at the tendencies of tannins in wines from the same vines and of the same vintage, they would have almost identical tendencies, as there isn't much variance between the things that produce the tannins. Different vintages, coming from the same vines, would have comparable tendencies, as the variance increases. If you'll look at that sheet, you'll note that the tannins from every bottle we tested from _Ric's_ have those similar tendencies. Same wine, different vintage. Bottles of the same vintage have those nearly identical tendencies."

"So, perceiving that the bottles all came from the same source, we tested the tannins against some other Super Tuscans to see if we could observe similar tendencies between them," Grissom put in.

I looked on as Fava shifted, just slightly, in his seat. He was still pretty good at playing the cool bird, but it was starting to get to him. I could tell that Sara saw it too. She shifted forward slightly.

"We can do this as the grape varietals in regions tend to be similar, and in Tuscany, just like in Bandol, one grape is king. In Tuscany, that grape is the sangiovese." Sara paused and cocked her head slightly. "It's what Chianti and Brunello di Montalcino, and all those traditional noble Tuscans are made of. Super Tuscans, like the ones the bottles at _Ric's_ claim to be, often blend the sangiovese grape with Bordeaux varietals," Sara shrugged slightly, "like a cab or a merlot, though the sangiovese still takes precedence."

Grissom leaned forward and slid another sheet across the table. "When we tested the tendencies of the bottles in _Ric's_ cellar against the bottles from Tuscany, we did not observe the similar tendencies one would expect to find between wines where the backbone of the wine is made up of the same grape." He paused. "Now, obviously the wines do not come from the same vineyards as all the Tuscans we tested, so there would be some differences. The barrel a wine is aged in can also produce tannins. Those tannins are called hydrolysable, and the forensic onologue we brought in was able to discard those. The tannins that come from the grapes are called condensed tannins, and they are what we concerned ourselves with. Those tannins should show similar tendencies in sangiovese based wines, regardless of the vineyard. The Super Tuscans you are selling do not come from Tuscany."

"You're comparing the types of grapes in the wine?" the mouthpiece asked.

"Essentially, yes," Grissom admitted.

The mouthpiece smiled slightly. "Who's to say the vineyard didn't plant another variety of vines and not use the…?"

"Sangiovese grape," Grissom responded.

"Right."

I felt myself step towards the glass just slightly. My mind hummed with excitement. It was about to get good.

Sara leaned forward. "Well," she said, "we played a hunch."

Vito Fava's mouthpiece lifted an eyebrow. The smirk on his mug showed that he found it amusing for Sara to have played a hunch, like it wouldn't hold up in court and we were making the trip for biscuits. Sara posture remained calm, however. I could almost picture the slightly pursed smile on her face and the narrow look of her deep brown eyes. "Pay attention because the science backs the theory." Sara turned her head just slightly so that it was facing Fava. "Camille Vanasse is from Bandol. You make yearly trips down there, don't you Mr. Fava?"

"I've vacationed there in the past."

"We checked your flight logs. We went way back. You've flown in and out of Marseille once a year for the past six years, about the same time your vintages started going into barrels. Not too far of a drive from Marseille…"

Fava clammed back up. I felt my grin grow. I pictured Sara's intense look and narrowed eyes and wondered, if deep down, there wasn't a grin matching mine eating away at her. Her shoulders weren't tense, so I had it figured that Fava's arrogance in spite of the evidence she held against him had her more amused than seeing red. I watched as Sara placed her arms on the table and folded her hands together. "Now, Camille Vanasse had one of your bottles tucked away and she was researching the wine. It made us wonder, so we decided to test your wine against some Bandols."

Grissom's shoulders lifted slightly as he sat up. "Bandol Reds are made up of almost entirely the mouverdre grape. While most vignerons do use a blend, the mouverdre is prominent."

"Just like Tuscans and the sangiovese grape," Sara cut in. "The thing with the mouverdre grape though, is that it's a finicky grape; it can't grow just anywhere. For instance, it can't grow in Tuscany and to try to grow it there would be a very expensive experiment. Bandol, however, is the perfect location for it."

"When we tested the tannins in your wine against Bandol wines, where the mouverdre shows prominence, we found similar tendencies. The science confirmed our theory. You are selling a Bandol wine under a Tuscan label."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I thought I was here about Camille," Fava said, "not some wine conspiracy you've cooked up."

"You are," Grissom said. "And we're going to tell you what happened."

Sara leaned forward. "You met Camille Vanasse during one of your trips to pick up your shipments of wine in Bandol. She fell in love with you and you brought her back here, to Vegas, to work in your nightclub. She didn't know who you were though, didn't know your family ran with the mob, and you weren't about to tell her. She was a good girl, from a good family, and you didn't have her under your thumb enough to know what she would do if she found out, so you kept it from her. For a couple of years, you managed to keep all that business well under the table and away from the sheets."

Fava sat up straighter and licked his lips as he waited for Sara to continue. Sara cocked her head slightly. "And she would have been none the wiser, if it wasn't for your old friend, Harry Montoya. You see, you may be the playboy, but Montoya is under the impression that he's also something of a ladies man," she paused, "but you already would know that. He uses your bank roll to throw cash at women to get them to sleep with him. What you didn't know was that even your girls weren't off limits. Harry Montoya tried to seduce Camille Vanasse. Knowing your wine was some hot stuff and going for at the very least, several centuries a bottle, he thought he'd try to impress her with it."

Sara took a breath and Grissom started in. "We know she tasted the wine. It's what got her curious. She found a bottle and slipped it into her purse so that she could know what she was looking for. She was researching the label and researching the mouverdre grape. We also know it wasn't you that fed her the wine. The wine is still young, full of chewy tannins and not fit to drink just yet. You wouldn't have made that mistake. The wine may be pulling in big prices, but it still isn't ready. You know the big selling point on that wine is its potential. Harry Montoya, not knowing anything about wine other than that it can be very profitable, didn't know he would be feeding Camille Vanasse a young, yet to mature, wine."

"He also didn't put two and two together, Vanasse's upbringing in the South of France with the source of the wine," Sara said. "You wouldn't have made the mistake of feeding Camille Vanasse the type wine she grew up on, not if you wanted to keep all your dirty business from her, but Harry Montoya did, and Vanasse recognized it. She knew something wasn't right with the wine, which is why she pulled a bottle from the rack. It's also why she tucked that bottle away and began looking into it, and into the grape she was sure made up the backbone of the wine."

Fava leaned back. He scratched at one eyebrow with his fingers. "Where are you going with this?" the lawyer asked.

"Right up to Camille Vanasse's murder," Grissom said.

"Camille Vanasse was sure the wine was a Bandol, so she went to Montoya, the original source of the wine, to confront him or to see what you were up to. We figure she was high when she went over there; she would have to be, a young woman like her, completely dependent on heroin by that time, a known junkie, and the whole thing with the wine had her freaking out." Sara lifted her arms from the table and rested her elbows on it instead. Her chin rested on her fists. "Montoya took advantage of her. He thought she could only be there to sleep with him, so he took her to his bed. Doped up, she didn't put up much of a resistance, but she did scratch him and she did manage to get across to Montoya her actual reason for being there. And Montoya got mad. He strangled her and probably would have killed her if reason hadn't managed to kick back in. He let her go. She ran back to the club, back to you, and there was no way you didn't see the bruises."

Sara stopped. Fava sighed. "I saw some bruising on her neck. I asked her about them but she wouldn't say anything. I thought her dope peddler gave them to her and I was going to have it taken care of."

"Taken care of? Is that code for 'I'm going to have my Bruno give the guy the Broderick'?"

I grinned at her use of language. Sara was one desirable dame when she went all hard boiled on someone. Fava was silent. Sara sat back. "Maybe you were going to have it taken care of, until Harry Montoya told you that she knew about your wine scam."

Fava shook his head. "Harry didn't tell me anything. I didn't kill Camille." I watched as he shook his head and looked down at the table. His eyes lifted to Grissom and Sara. "I loved her. Despite all the drama she brought, I could not help but love her. I'm not your meat."

"Oh, we know. We know who killed her. We found the print on the syringe used to inject heroin and cyanide into the wine that killed her."

The shyster let out a long, annoyed breath. He placed his palms on the table and leaned forward. "If you know it wasn't my client, what are we doing here?"

"Your client is going to be charged as an accessory after the fact," Grissom said.

From the one way, I watched as a smile slowly spread over Fava's face. "You can't prove that. I had no idea what happened. I thought she overdosed, just like everyone else. This is a phony charge." He stood up. "I won't see any jail time. I think I'll be on my way."

"There is the matter of the wine."

Fava stopped. "You can't really prove any of that either."

"Actually, we can," Grissom said.

"We know who your partner is," Sara added. "And we know where the wine came from." She leaned forward. "And the thing is, once we know the vineyard a wine is from, we can do DNA fingerprinting on the wine."

"Forensic oenology. We can match a wine, not only to a vineyard, but to a vine."

"We've got you on fraud, smuggling, not to mention embezzlement. You sure aren't claiming what you take home from the wine on your tax returns."

And there it was, Fava caught in the skim. That line hadn't left Vegas with the mob. There were still some goodfellas around, sticking their hands in the cookie jar.

The lawyer stood up. "That's not your jurisdiction."

Grissom shook his head. "No, it's the Federal government's. We will be handing all of our findings over to the FBI."

"Not to mention Interpol and the _DGDDI _in France," Sara added. "The wine unit in the Douane is going to be all over that vineyard."

Grissom glanced over to the officer at the door. "Ask him to come in now."

Beside me, agent Jim Quinlin turned and moved to the door. I watched the g-man open the door to the interrogation room and put the bracelets on Fava. Sara and Grissom stood up and watched them go before strolling from the room.


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter 33**

Shifty eyes. That was what I remembered most about the mug sitting across from me. He had a nervous glance and a way of letting his gasper dangle from his lips that told me he was a wrong gee. He'd been hinky from the get-go. I had him figured for a shady number, right from the first, especially the way he shifted around on his feet and let his eyes dart back and forth about the club. I'd figured him for a character of interest in our little investigation, but that was before the whole sex triangle threw us off track. Now, we were back to him. First witness is the first suspect, and this bird is the one who'd found our dead canary.

I gave Johnny Mathers the eyeball. Even as he sat, he shifted around. His eyes were hard and heavy. His hand reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a deck. Slapping them on the table, he reached for a gasper, put it in the corner of his mouth, and let it hang. His hand reached for a light.

"There's no smoking in here," Brass said from beside me.

Mathers looked up at us for the first time. His dark gaze was hard on Brass. Slowly he reached up and plucked the gasper from his mouth. "Mind if I chew a little gum?" he asked, his voice acerbic.

I watched as Brass raised both his palms up out at his side. "Be my guest."

Mathers stared at him and then plucked a stick of gum from its wrapper. He popped it in his mouth and began to chew. His open mouth was fixed in a sneer as he chewed the gum, his jaw working up and down like a horse.

"Good, now that you're comfortable, maybe we can get down to business," Brass said, his voice hinting at sarcasm. He ranked his eyes over Mathers. "You're a hard man to find."

Johnny Mathers shrugged. "So what?"

"So, we've been looking for you," I said. "Sent a copper to your door to serve a warrant, but you weren't there. You were lying dormy, waiting for this whole thing to blow over, weren't you?"

Mathers smirked. I shrugged. "So we had someone search the joint without you."

The smirk on Mathers' mug died. He gave me the hard eye. "Who gave you the juice to search my joint?"

"We had a judge issue us the rubber stamp." I gave Mathers the up and down. He was glaring hard at me.

"On what grounds?" asked the mouthpiece Mathers had picked up.

"Murder One," Brass said.

I looked across at the bartender. "You killed Camille Vanasse."

There was a long pause where the room was silent. I stared at Mathers, watching as he leaned back in his seat. "Yeah," he asked, "why would I do that?"

I looked sideways at Brass before looking back to Johnny Mathers. "You weren't just a bartender at _Ric's_, but Fava's silent partner.

"Silent partner?" The sneer returned. "You're blowing smoke."

I felt a smirk lift to my lips. I leaned back in my chair and cocked my head to the side. My forearms rested on the arms of my chair. The dark little mug was giving me the eyeball. "You're old school," I said, "like back in the days when the mob bosses stayed under the radar, controlling the scene and watching it, but being careful not to get noticed. You operate underground, keep everything on the hush hush. You had shares in _Ric's_, but nobody knew except for Vito Fava. He was the face of the joint, wasn't he? But he wasn't the only one calling the shots. He wasn't the only high pillow."

"I don't know what you're gumming about. I'm just the bartender."

"That's what you'd like everybody to think, but we know differently."

"Yeah?"

I jerked a nod. "Yeah. Let's start with your background. You're real name is Johnny Mathieu, or as your French father would have probably preferred, Jean Mathieu. Your mother was Sicilian, from Palermo, where you were born. Your father split when you were young, and you lived with your mother, in the Alcamo wine region. From a young age, you knew a thing about wine. Your family was making it." I paused. "Granted, Sicilian wine isn't exactly respected in the wine trade, but the process was there."

Mathers gave me a glare with my last quip. A glance to my side told me that Brass's lips had curled up. I looked back at Mathers. "You also learned a little bit about what it was like to grow up amongst the Cosa Nostra. Your family was connected."

I paused for a few seconds to let it all sink it. Mathers knew we were on the money with his background, so I thought I'd let him stew. I sat up. "Then, when you were eight, your mom died in a mysterious accident and your family had to decide what to do with you. Enter Ricardo Ajala, your mother's uncle. He offers to take you in, and you are on your way to America. You change your last name to Mathers, Americanizing it and shedding the last of your father. You still kept your ties with your family back in Sicily though, as ties are important, aren't they? That's what you got told as you were groomed into becoming part of the Mafioso."

Johnny Mathers only glared.

I leaned back again. "We thought that Vito Fava and Harry Montoya went way back, but you and Fava, you go back even further, don't you?"

Mathers was still clammed so I continued. "Fava's father knocked up a local Kansas City girl, and the result was Fava. Nicky Fava was running things out in Vegas, but he figured he'd do the noble thing and he married the girl anyways. He didn't bring her out to Vegas though. Nicky Fava was a playboy. He had a string of girls on his arm back in Vegas, including Laney Hathaway, a showgirl he was dizzy over, so he kept his wife and kid back in Kansas City. When they came out to Vegas, young Vito Fava palled around with Harry Montoya. Montoya was a good kid to pal around with. He was mean, tough and he watched out for Fava on Vegas's unfamiliar streets. He was the one doing Fava's dirty business when Fava had business that needed doing in Vegas. Back home in Kansas City though, it was you and Fava drinking from the same cup."

I stopped again. Brass was sitting a little sideways in his seat, keeping his gaze firmly on Mathers, watching for a reaction, but letting me run Mathers' grilling. Across the table, Mathers was watching me. So was his mouthpiece. Through the one way mirror, I could feel Sara and Grissom's eyes on me. It felt kind of good to have the floor. This is what all my research had been for – leading up to this moment where we pinned the rap on the plug and put the punk in the pen.

"Now, Nicky Fava was Ajala's boy. He was also Ajala's widow's nephew. That makes you loosely related, distant cousins a couple times removed. When Nicky Fava bit it, Ajala had Vito Fava step in. Vito Fava had been groomed for it and showed a talent in running the joint, even in the lean years.

"Then, Ajala's pump popped and Fava was working for Ajala's widow and two daughters." I paused and gave Johnny Mathers the up and down again. He was still clammed up and still listening. His mouthpiece was listening intently as well. I let my head fall slightly to the side. "Not long after, you find out that one of your father's brothers died. Your father had died a few years before, but what was that to you? He'd split long before and left you bupkis. His brother though, that was a different matter. Your uncle had a little property in the Bandol region, right on the hillside, a lucrative little plot of land, with the potential to be very profitable, especially since the land was filled with vines."

I stopped to take a breath, watching as Mathers glared at me. "What's this got to do with me? So what if some uncle of mine got the bump? I didn't know the gee. My father had split. I was raised by my mother and her family."

I smirked. "Because uncle's property was in France, and in France, they have French Inheritance Laws and that uncle didn't have a will. He also didn't have children to pass the land down to, or surviving parents, or even surviving siblings, but he did have quite a few surviving nieces and nephews, all who gained a share in the property and all who had different ideas about it. Some want to keep the land, develop it, maybe start their own vineyard, or rent it out to rubes from the North for big bucks each summer. Others want to sell the plot, divide the takings and get a quick cash fix. It gets a little uglier when the characters start arguing over who is actually a legitimate heir and actually has a stake in the place. Since the French Inheritance law guarantees illegitimate children the same rights as children from a legal union, there is the argument that illegitimate children of the siblings should also be guaranteed the same rights. That would affect you directly, now, wouldn't it? You being the illegitimate offspring of your French father and a number of your cousins arguing that you and a few others of your father's and uncles' seeds should not have a stake. Things get a little blurred the further away from that tree you go. Now, the piece of land is tied up in a big property dispute, being fought over by all of your uncle's surviving relatives. Until they settle it, that land is off limits."

Mathers shifted in his seat. "So what? I still don't know what you're ragging on."

I gave him the eyeball. "It's time you were on the square with us."

"About what? I don't know from nothing."

"Let me give you the lay," I said. "You uncle dies and you find out you're part of a property dispute. The land's going to waste, so you decide to set up a little grift. You know a little bit about wine from eight years spent among the vines. Maybe you didn't care for the wine racket before, but that wine your family made was only one step up from swill. Now you have the chance to make a good wine, and a lot of money while you're at it. The vines are old, but that works in your favor – for the kind of wine you're making. Bandol's got a bit of a reputation in wine circle, and the rep is a good one. It won't take in the dough the wine you're selling at _Ric's _does, but the bottles don't run cheap."

"I still don't know what you're gumming about."

I leaned forward. "We know the wine you're selling isn't from Tuscany. We tested the grapes. They don't match up with the wines from the Tuscany region. The wine is from Bandol. You were smuggling the stuff, skimming the profits and not claiming the income. The age old Vegas skim." Sheriff Montgomery had said it wasn't like they were busting Al Capone for Tax Evasion, but here it was again, busting another made man for another skim. I gave Mathers the eyeball. "We've handed all of that info over to the Feds and to the authorities in France."

"I'm not selling any wine. What do I care if you told the fuzz about some wine being sold?"

I looked at Mathers. He was trying to sell, but I knew the lay and I wasn't buying. "Because you are selling the wine. You're selling the stuff you're making on that vacant land. The authorities in France are going to match that wine to that vineyard. It would be an awfully big coincidence if _Ric's_ was selling wine from a vineyard you had a stake in."

Mathers clammed up. I watched him shift in his seat. "You made the wine and then you and Vito Fava slapped on a fake label. Now, I don't think the fake label was all about the profits. Sure you're pulling in way more coin selling off your wine as a Super Tuscan underground, but a Bandol label would have kept you in cash. The real reason was that you couldn't use the property to make the wine, not when it is tied up in the property dispute. There are too many laws and regulations when it comes to wine in France. You would have to prove origin and the jig would be up. So you slapped a label from a place where wine regulations didn't mean so much. It was just a happy coincidence that you could super inflate the price of your wine to over a thousand bucks a bottle if you marketed it as a rare Super Tuscan.

"You knew that you could make some ridiculous coin, but you needed some help. First off, you need somebody over there to act as a vigneron. You convince one of those relatives you kept close ties with in Sicily to relocate to the South of France, squat on the vacant property, and use a small section of land to grow your vines and make your wine. That's why the yield is so low. Bandol already has a low yield, but when you're only using about a third of the vineyard… Your relative gets a small dip in the profits and you get a good wine you can sell underground."

I paused and let my eyes skim over Mathers. "Now, you have the wine, but you still need some help. You couldn't sell out of France and you had a lot of wine to move, so you went to Fava. He's got a joint perfect for moving a lot of wine underground. He's also got a jet to move it. You approach him with the grift, get him to buy out and you whisper into Ajala's widow's ear that she should sell out to Fava. Ajala's widow finished raising you and she trusted your judgment. Why not get rid of the joint? It hadn't been making a good profit in years. The mob was out of Vegas and it wasn't the old days where the joint would swing any more. It was still a little useful, but for what? You told her it was better to sell, to give Fava the chance to run the joint he wanted to run and be rid of it. She and her daughters would get taken care of and the problems with the joint would pass onto Fava. So the widow and her daughters sell. Fava buys out the joint with a partner, a distant cousin, some bird calling himself Johnny Leone." I paused and made sure I had his eye. "You used your mother's maiden name. Fava converts the tunnel system below the joint into a serious wine cellar and it is ready just as your first vintage is ready to come out of the barrel."

Mathers worked his jaw over his gum and glared at me. "That's quite the story you've cooked up."

"It's more than a story, savvy. You and Fava partnered up in the wine racket. You convinced Fava to turn his gin mill into a drum. You give him the wine in exchange for 49% of the club. It's a good little grift you've got going. Not only can you sell a bootlegged wine for crazy, exorbitant prices, but you can use the joint for other rackets, including moving dough."

I paused and looked at Brass. He looked across at Mathers. "We found the prints of Maxwell Calvada, Bernard Leonarduzi and Salvatore Marciano in the joint. Now, they aren't what I would call your typical wine snob, so I think they came to you to do laundry.

"You and Fava sold them some bottles for a cut, charging them more for the bottle than they could sell it for, and then passed off the money back in France, while they found some wine patsy to buy the bottle, leaving them with clean dough. That would be how an English Lord got his hands on the bottle. You searched out collectors to buy the wine, got some relatives in the trade to make whispers about your wine, and had some associates pass the wine off while you did the cleaning."

I paused and sat back. "You were smart about it too, smart enough to know how to play it and what you could get away with before somebody got the goods on you. It was all silk, wasn't it? Until the girl got involved." I cocked my head to the side. "You didn't count on a dame, did you? Not one getting in your business. But Fava met someone on one of his trips to move your wine, and she wasn't like the other dames Fava picked up. He was dizzy over this one, so dizzy he didn't discard her or try the whole "same time next year," stunt on her. He brought her back with him and gave her a job in the club. You warned him not to mix business with pleasure and warned him not to let her in on the grift. He was good to his word and kept her out of it, but you didn't count on Montoya."

I stopped to take another good look at Mathers. His eyes hardened. I smiled. "Cocky little mug, isn't he? And not too smart. He used the wine to try to seduce Camille Vanasse and when Vanasse recognized the wine and got wise to the scheme, he almost strangled her. He caught himself though, stopped himself before he could get himself into a jam he couldn't get out of. While he was trying to figure out what to do with her, he followed her back to the club and then went to you."

"You were just the bartender to him," Brass said.

I jerked a nod. "You were so good at lying low like those old mob bosses, that Montoya didn't take you for anything but an ear. He knew you were in on the grift. You had to be. What he didn't know was that while he was trying to find a way to get Fava wise to Vanasse's suspicions without getting Fava wise to the fact he'd slept with the dame, you had decided to solve the problem yourself. You couldn't let some French tomato ruin the good thing you had going, so you played the role of a bartender, asked her what was wrong and tried to get the lay on her and what she would do. Vanasse, seeing you only for the empathetic ear, laid out what she knew on you. She was too all over the place to trust, so you knew you had to get rid of her, and quick. You were going to have a full house that night, a bunch of birds in buying your wine and you couldn't have her around for that. Not with what she knew."

The interrogation room door slid open and Catherine slipped in, taking a seat next to Brass. I glanced up at the sharp broad with loads of sass before looking back at Mathers. "You killed her."

Johnny Mathers' dark eyes shifted around. He glanced between Catherine, Brass and me. "Just what are you stringin'? I thought that dame OD'ed."

"She had a little help," Catherine said.

"Who better to slip a girl a Mickey Finn than a bartender?" I asked. "When Montoya first went to you, you decided to make plans in case things went south. You knew you had time to go home before the joint started swinging, so you went back to your joint, cooked up some of Vanasse's heroin, mixed it with cyanide and returned to the club."

Beside me, Catherine opened up a folder and slipped a photo across the table. "I searched your place. I found the bindles the heroin came from in your garbage. They had Camille Vanasse's prints on them, so we know you used her heroin." She paused and slipped another photo across the table. "I also found the cyanide. Bit of a photography buff, are you?"

Mathers was silent. Catherine slid another photo across to him. "You used a liquid form of sodium cyanide to mix with the heroin. It's found in photo processing solutions, which you just happened to have lying around."

"Wine is the racket, but photography is the hobby?" Brass asked.

Johnny Mathers shook his head. "I don't know nothing about that." He gave Catherine the up and down. "I had a dame once who liked to take photos. Maybe she left it. I didn't even know it was there."

"And the heroin," Brass deadpanned, "I bet you didn't know it was there either."

Mathers gave his head another shake. I gave him the eyeball. "You knew it was there, and we're getting you for murder, pipe that?"

"Yeah?" he asked. "How do I know you didn't plant it?"

"We don't go in for rappers here," I said. "The truth works just fine."

"You had the mixture," Catherine said. "You drew it into a syringe, brought it back to the club and injected it into a bottle of Vanasse's favored wine. We found your print on the syringe, and on the bottle."

"I think you took the bottle to her dressing room and uncorked it for her," I said. "Then, you played the role of bartender, listening to her and trying to get a read on what she'd do. That was when you decided to give her the drink. Vanasse wasn't giving you the answers you wanted, so you gave her a glass. Then you watched her drink it, waited for her to sing her last note, and then cheesed the evidence behind the bar, dumping the wine and rinsing out the bottle first. A few minutes later, you went back, 'found her' and told Fava. A body dump would look suspicious and the dame would trace back to the joint, so the two of you had to figure out what to do with her. Fava though the canary had OD'ed, so he figured it was better to risk reporting the body than dumping it. The cops would be in and out and you could get back to business. You knew she'd overdosed, so you went along with it and dropped a dime to report the body. You were banking on the coroner rule the death an overdose, despite the bruising on her neck. That bruising didn't really concern you anyways. It was Montoya's handprints. What did you care if the cops put the squeeze on Montoya? He was the mug who got you into the mess in the first place. You knew he wasn't going about to start singing about the wine grift. He wouldn't have a bankroll if he did that. Besides, Montoya knew he didn't kill Vanasse, so he wasn't really worried about it. He knew we didn't have anything on him."

I stopped, took a breath and went in for the kill. "You almost got away with it, too. You would have if we hadn't found the cellar. While Fava got his customers out of the joint and hid the wine he'd taken out, you hid the stuff you'd stuffed behind the bar, tossing them in the back of the cellar, thinking we'd never find the cellar to begin with." I paused again. "After all, how many times has the joint been raided? Nobody had ever found that trap door before. The birds running the joint had always pulled the bar over, just like you and Fava did. You weren't counting on us finding it. We didn't the first time."

Mathers stopped chewing the gum. He stared hard at me. I ranked my eye over him. "But we went back," I said. "We found some scratching on the floor and pulled back the bar. Not only did we find the wine which got us wise to your wine grift, but we found the syringe, and the bottle. You'd rinsed the bottle out, but you left some of that heroin and that cyanide inside the cork. When we matched the print on the syringe, we knew we had our meat."

Brass looked at him. "Montoya let Fava know we were onto the grift, and in turn, Fava passed that onto you."

"That's why you chose to play it smart and lie dormy," I said. "But you weren't smart enough to get out of town, until it was too late. Fava tried, but got caught at the airport, trying to get the clean sneak in his plane. You decided to hightail it out on the highway, but you couldn't wait to get gas until you were out of state, could you? Not that it would have mattered now that the Feds are after you as well. They've got you for embezzlement, tax evasion and a few other rackets, Old Vegas style. Here, we've got you for murder one."

Brass stood up and put the bracelets back on Johnny Mathers. I stood up and gave him the up and down. "Bet you wish Montoya would have just finished her off in the first place."

Johnny Mathers was silent, but he look in his dark eyes confirmed it. I gave him another glance, nodded once and strolled from the room. Catherine followed. We met Grissom and Sara in the hall. "That's it," Grissom said.

I jerked a nod, not quite satisfied. We didn't get Montoya. We hadn't been able to hold him on anything. "Harry Montoya still gets to fly free," I said.

Grissom nodded. "Without victim testimony, we can't prove rape."

I jerked another nod. Sara shook her head. "He's getting off."

"Yeah," I said. "He is."


	34. Chapter 34

**Chapter 34**

It was late afternoon by the time we got back to the lab. A look at my ticker told me it was 5:30. I wasn't sure how long we'd been going for, but I was ready to split. I'd been feeling a little low, watching Montoya walk, but had perked up a little on the drive back. As Grissom had said, we got the mug that put our dead canary on ice, and the Feds had both Vito Fava and Johnny Mathers on several other raps. Meanwhile, Harry Montoya was sure to do something stupid and get brought in again. He was the kind of mug who couldn't stay out of trouble for long. We'd get him the next time. In the mean time, we did what nobody else had been able to do before. We took down _Ric's. _We got the rumble on a Vegas institution, one hidden on the back streets, found out how the birds had lammed in all of those raids and nailed the mugs who ran the joint on several rackets.

Tomorrow, after the newshawks got the rumble and I got some rest, I figured I'd take a walk. Maybe I'd find a newsie and read about it in black and white. Notorious club, _Ric's, _taken down in wine grift. For now, it was almost time to call it a night.

There were a few things left to do back at the lab, including filing a report. Grissom had to meet with the g-men assigned to the case and go over things with them. They'd be stripping _Ric's _cellar at the same time, and gathering what they could from the joint. I finished putting my John Hancock on the report and went to find Catherine. Catherine had a few bottles of Bandols left over from the testing that we didn't need to log into evidence and the Feds didn't need for their part in the investigation. The juice was paid for but of no interest to the lab. As far as I saw it, the stuff was fair game. I thought maybe I'd grab a bottle and see what the buzz was about.

Catherine handed me over a bottle with an arch of one of her perfectly plucked eyebrows. I took the bottle, grabbed a couple of mugs and a corkscrew and headed for the locker room. Sara was there, sitting on the bench and staring at her open locker. She glanced up at me. Her eyes flickered over to the bottle. "What have you got there?"

"An extra bottle. We didn't need it for anything."

"So what are you doing with it?"

I gave her the up and down and grinned. Sitting down on the bench, I pulled the corkscrew from my pocket and held it out in my hand. Then, I cocked my head. "Taster's choice?"

"You want me to try the wine with you?"

I shrugged. "Can't drink a bottle like this alone."

Sara arched a brow. I gave her the eyeball. "Don't you want to see what the hubbub is about?"

"I'm more of a beer drinker. Besides the stuff we tasted earlier was awful."

"That stuff was young. It needed at least five more years to mature. This is a 1993 _Bandol La Cabassaou - Domaine Tempier_. It's a $195.00 bottle of wine."

Sara looked up at me, her eyes wide. "$195.00?"

"According to Catherine."

Sara shook her head. I figured she thought a $195.00 bottle of wine would be wasted on her, but if any dame deserved a little wining and dining it was Sara. No bottle would be a waste on her, and she just might like the stuff. She was thinking something else though and it took until she said it before I knew what that was. "No wonder they could sell the bottles from _Ric's _for over a thousand dollars a pop. They just have to market it as rare and the price would shoot up."

"It is rare," I said.

Sara shook her head again. "What did Grissom say about you taking the wine?"

"Catherine submitted one large bill for all the wine she brought in. The lab is paying for it, but there are a few bottles we didn't need and didn't open. The stuff's fair game." Besides, I figured the lab kind of owed me with everybody drinking the expensive java I brought in. Maybe not a couple of century's worth, but it did add up. Nobody else had made a play for the wine.

Sara gave her head a final shake. She stood up. "You can't drink that in the lab."

There were a couple of places I could think of that we could go to uncork it though, and I was about to suggest one of them, but Grissom took that moment to step into the locker room. He glanced between us and then glanced to the bottle of wine. He frowned slightly. His eyes flickered over Sara before they landed back on me. I watched as he drew his lips in. "A call just came in about a domestic. Neighbors also heard a shot fired. Can you take it?"

I frowned. "Can't swing take it?" It was their shift. Besides we'd all been going for who knows how long and I was dangerously close to being maxed-out on overtime and having to pull lab duty for the rest of the month. The lab was one of the last places I wanted to be stuck in for the rest of the month, especially when the mean streets were calling me and the weather was so warm. People did funny things in the heat.

Grissom didn't say anything. I watched as Sara just arched a brow and looked at him.

"Brass will meet you there," he said.

I frowned again. Why was a homicide dick going to a call out for a domestic?

Grissom handed me the slip. I looked down at it and read the address. "That's Harry Montoya's joint," I said.

Grissom nodded. "I want one of us to take it. Do you want it?"

That's what this line had been about. It wasn't just any domestic. Yeah, I wanted it. I jerked a nod.

Sara looked at me. "I'll go with you."

Grissom frowned again and I knew he probably wanted her to take off. She'd been going longer than me and was probably already maxed-out. Grissom didn't stop her though. He just gave her the eyeball and nodded softly before turning from the room.

I looked down at the bottle sitting on the bench. The bottle would have to wait. Picking it up, I held the $195.00 bottle in my hands and thought about all those bottles of wine being plucked from _Ric's _cellar. I looked at Sara. "Do you know what this is?" I asked.

Sara looked at the bottle in my hands and then at me. She smirked. "You aren't going to say that it's 'the stuff that dreams are made of,'_1_ are you?"

I frowned because I was thinking about saying something along that line. Instead, I shook my head. I put the bottle in my locker and closed the metal door. "No," I said, "that's the wrong movie."

Sara's smirk grew. She shook her head and followed me from the locker room.

I drove the route to the Montoya's joint, occasionally glancing at my passenger. Sara was holding her eyes open beside me, but without much luck. The eyes kept drifting shut. She had to be wiped to have that much trouble. I'd been tired earlier, but the call out to Montoya's joint wiped away any tiredness I had. I pulled into the lot and watched as Sara revived, the spark of a case or of what was going down at Montoya's getting her keyed back up.

There was a meat wagon parked before the doors to the building. We strolled by it with a sideways glance. When we got up to the apartment, two paramedics were kneeling beside Montoya and holding something against his hip. Neighbors had heard a shot, so I figured that was where he may have gotten a case of lead poisoning. Blood soaked through the white material and onto the paramedics' gloves. They had Montoya lay back and I gave Montoya the once over.

Here was a man that looked liked he'd gone a few rounds with a heavyweight pug. His chin had seen a little music. He had a ring of purple and red around his left eye that would turn into a nice goog after a little time. His cheek was swollen, his shirt was ripped and there was already some bruising showing up on his arms and chest. Somebody had given him the Broderick before they shot him.

My eyes glanced about the room. The gorilla from _Ric's_, Calvin Hellman was there, leaning against the wall. I glanced to his fists. His knuckles were a little red and had what looked like dried blood on them. I looked at Sara and nodded in his direction. She jerked a nod back and then nodded in another direction. My eyes followed her nod. Sitting in a chair, Lauren Perske looked as calm and cool as ever.

Sara moved towards Calvin Hellman. I strolled over to Lauren Perske, standing over her. She crossed one perfectly shaped gam over the other. Her blue-grey eyes peered up at me. An innocent smile danced over her lips. "Hello, Greg."

I gave her the up and down. It had been hot again that day and she was wearing shorts that cut just below the top of her thighs. She had a tank top on and her platinum hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Her slender arm rested on the arm of the chair. "What happened here?" I asked.

Brass stood beside me. "Let's see. According to the statements made here, apparently Harry Montoya had a nice fall down his apartment stairs. Luckily, Calvin Hellman was around to help him up. Unfortunately they made a little too much noise coming into the apartment because Miss Perske here took a shot at Montoya. Her rod is over there on that table." I glanced to an end table and sure enough, a small rod sat on top of it. A uniform was standing beside it.

"It was an accident," she said. Her lips pursed into a smirk. "I came over to wait for Harry and heard a loud noise. There was a thump against the door. I thought it was an intruder. I took a shot and accidentally hit Harry." She shrugged, but the smirk still played over her lips.

"An accident?"

"Ask Harry."

I jerked a nod. "I'll do that," I said.

"If Harry hadn't told those coppers it was an accident, I'd be in bracelets."

I looked at Brass. He nodded to confirm it. Montoya had told the uniforms that it had been an accident. "Montoya's not pressing any charges."

I gave Perske the up and down. She'd just shot her boyfriend in the hip and was as cool as she was the day I first say her, the day Camille Vanasse was murdered. She hadn't even attempted to leave after, just took a seat to watch the show and waited for us to show up. Now I knew what the game had been earlier. She hadn't let Montoya off the hook. She'd been waiting for things to blow over a little before she got back at Montoya for playing around on her. Then, rod in hand, she waited for Harry to come back to his apartment.

It was no coincidence Harry Montoya got shot in the hip. Perske was sending a message. I had no doubt the dame had good aim. She could have gone a couple inches to the left and another inch south if she wanted and Montoya knew it. He'd have time to think about it too, as he sat in the hospital and had the lug removed. She had to have something on him too if he wasn't ratting on her.

I moved over to where the paramedics were putting Montoya on a gurney. "You don't want to tell us anything?" I asked.

Montoya looked up at me and spit some blood to the side. "Don't be a bunny," he said.

"You've gone a few rounds and been shot and you have nothing to say about it."

"I already told that flattie it was an accident."

"The shooting, or the fact you're black and blue?"

Montoya just looked gave me the eyeball. I stared back at him. "Quite the accident," I said.

"I fell down the stairs."

"Sure," I said. "That's quite the fall. And when you did manage to get back up to your apartment, with your boy Fava's Bruno giving you a hand, your moll shoots you in the hip."

Montoya spit out another mouthful of blood. "Another accident. It's been one of those kind of days."

I jerked a nod. "Yeah, from the sounds of things, you're lucky to still be sucking air, the way your day was going."

Montoya just glared at me. The paramedics lifted the gurney. Sara came over. "I'm going to get a ride with one of the officers and collect the bullet and any other evidence at the hospital."

I nodded. I'd process the joint. I watched Sara follow the paramedics out and then glanced back to Perske and Hellman. This was no accident, but if Montoya wasn't going to spill on Perske, there was no way he was about to spill on Calvin Hellman. I figured Hellman had been sent there to deliver another message, this one coming from Vito Fava. I wasn't sure if it was because Montoya had assaulted Fava's girl, or because Montoya had been the mug who put _Ric's _in the pinch, but whatever the reason, that message had been received. If Montoya even thought about singing, the next message would come express and it wouldn't be so pleasant.

I snapped a couple of photos and swabbed Hellman's knuckles. Brass stood beside me, playing the tough cat and making my job a little easier. I tested the swab and found blood. I had no doubt it was Montoya's blood, but that didn't do me a lot of good with Montoya keeping his trap shut about what happened. "What's with the blood on the hands," I asked.

"I was helping Harry out. He was bleeding."

"So you just pressed your knuckles to him?"

Calvin Hellman didn't say anything. I didn't figure him for a bird who'd sing easily, but it didn't matter anyways, not with Montoya clamming up. Letting Hellman go, I moved back over to Lauren Perske. She stood before me, stepping close to me and holding out her hands. She arched a brow. "Aren't you going to process me?"

I gave her the up and down and jerked a nod. Her intense gaze was on me as I tested her hands for gun shot residue. She'd fired the rod, but she was going to be the rap as well. She dropped her hands and brushed by me slowly, her shoulder pressing into mine. Her head turned back. "You didn't need me for anything else, did you?"

I shook my head. "Maybe later. We're done for now."

Her lips turned up into that dangerous smirk. "Well, you know where to find me."

"Yeah," Brass said. "he can find you downtown. I'm not done with you yet."

Perske looked at Brass. "Honey, this is downtown."

I watched as Brass gave her the up and down. He cocked his head slightly to the side. "Well, what do you know. It is. I guess we'll just have to go back to the clubhouse, then."

Perske smirked. She looked back at me and winked. "You still know where to find me."

I jerked a nod and watched her go and then lifted my camera to snap some shots of the joint.

After I finished processing the rest of the joint, I headed back to the lab and logged in all of the evidence. I had taken a lot of photos of the joint and had lifted the gun for Bobby Dawson to test. Just as I dropped Lauren Perske's rod off, Sara phoned to say she was already heading back from the hospital. Montoya had gone straight into surgery and the slug had been cleanly removed from Montoya's hip. A uniform was giving Sara a ride over. I waited for her at reception. "Montoya still calling it an accident?" I asked.

Sara scoffed and jerked a nod. "He's not going to talk."

"No," I said. "He got the message." Montoya hadn't gotten off scott free after all. Some old time Vegas justice had been brought down on him. When I thought about the bruising and the slug that had been put in his hip I shuddered. He'd be in pain for a long time and he'd been lucky. Back in the day, he might have got his head put in a vice. I was sure he was thinking about how some time in the cooler might have been a better alternative. I signed the report and let Sara take it to Grissom

I was in the locker room changing my shoes when Sara came in. She gave my shoulder a squeeze and looked down at me, her chocolate eyes melting. Her palm was bleeding warmth into my shoulder. "Great job on the case, Greg."

I shrugged. We'd been behind the eight ball for most of it, but had found out where we stood in the end.

Sara shook her head. "No, really, you did great. If you hadn't dragged us back to the scene, used your history of Vegas underground and found the cellar, we'd still be back at square two and beating ourselves against another dead end."

Her hand stayed on my shoulder for another few seconds, bleeding more warmth into me. Then, she dropped her hand, opened her locker, grabbed her jacket and strolled from the room, with one last backwards glance as she said goodnight. I watched her go, watched that Sidle sway and felt pretty good about myself. I had found the cellar and I had found Johnny Mathers' connection to that vineyard in France. I tied up my laces, stood up and grabbed my fedora out of my locker. Placing it on my head, I thought about the heat of Sara's hand on my shoulder and the warmth in her mocha eyes. I may have just used up the last of my overtime for the month, but things were looking up. I'd just played a pretty key role in solving a monster case, had the night off, a free bottle of expensive wine, and there was a leggy brunette that I figured I might finally have a chance with. If I hurried, I figured I might even be able to catch her in the parking lot.

I moved to the dark lot, lit by some high overhead lights and glanced around. Under the glow of one of those lights, Sara was standing by her car, but she was not alone. Grissom was with her and they were talking softly. I stopped to take a peek.

Grissom was leaning into her, so close they were nearly touching. His arm rested against her roof and a soft smile played at his lips. Sara was leaning back against her car, smiling up at him and looking at him with shining eyes that could make a guy dizzy and a gaze a guy could only hope to ever have directed at him. She was nodding softly. Grissom reached around to open her car door for her and his hand brushed against her side as she slid into the seat. He paused beside the open door, held it for a moment, and then closed the door for her. I turned away.

Huh, I thought. I shook my head. "Myrna Loy," I whispered to myself, smirking. I strolled back to my own car. So much for the lanky brunette. So maybe I didn't have a shot but there were still a lot of other dolls out there. Vegas was full of them. We had more knockouts than any other city in the world. I adjusted my fedora. Maybe it was time I changed my type. What was that old adage? Gentlemen prefer blondes?

_That's the crop…_

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><p><em>1:<em> The closing line from the 1941 film, _The Maltese Falcon_, based on Dashiell Hammett's book. While the film was very faithful to the novel, the epigraph is from the film alone.

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><p><strong>AN**: Hope you enjoyed my little Greg fic. It was a ton of fun to write. A huge thank you to everybody who gave this fic a shot. A even bigger thank you to those of you who let me know what you thought with a review. And my biggest thanks is reserved for aninom and SylvieT who followed me over here and so faithfully reviewed every chapter.


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